


The Good That Won't Come Out

by artificialsleeping



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 13:54:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6807715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificialsleeping/pseuds/artificialsleeping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The light calls and says in gentle whispers, ‘Give up this fight.’</p><p>AU where Kylo Ren gives Han Solo his lightsaber, and what’s left of Ben Solo comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Splintered

The moment the hilt of his lightsaber leaves his hands, Kylo Ren feels nothing. His heart is pounding an erratic rhythm in his chest, like it is a fist trying to beat him apart. Han Solo looks at him, their eyes locked in a heavy silence, clutching the saber, their fingers still brushing. As if disembodied, in this moment of focus, he feels the Force through him, divided in him as it has always been. There is darkness, a simmering hatred that he has been nursing for years, that wants to see this man ruined. And there is light, pulling him in dizzying turns, which calls and says in gentle whispers, ‘Give up this fight.’ But he feels nothing, numb. Not seduced, not played, not a puppet. 

_‘I want to be free of this pain.’_

Who is he now, if he takes this away? If he severs this last piece of himself, what will remain, and what will he do with it? 

He will be powerful, he remembers. More powerful than Darth Vader, who fell to compassion in his end. He will be free from love and the suffering that comes with it.

The wind in the oscillator’s deep chamber whistles faintly, brushing Kylo’s hair from his forehead and cooling the sweat beaded there. Distantly, Kylo knows that they have an audience: the stormtroopers, Chewbacca, the traitor. The scavenger, the light of her bright and present, but jagged with worry. The hum of idle blasters buzzes like flies. 

“He will know,” Kylo Ren promises, his voice hoarse. “The Supreme Leader is-”

“Fuck the Supreme Leader.” Han Solo’s voice is savage as he blinks away tears, his hand hefting the hilt to hold it, suspended, above the drop below their feet. 

Kylo can still stop him. He can take the saber back, strike down his father - his _father_ \- as easily as a child. He can cut out this weakness, and be free. 

Kylo Ren watches, rigid, vibrating, a coiled spring of something unstable, as the saber falls from Han Solo’s hands.

There is a blaster shot, sharp and hot, and Han buckles before him with a cry, clutching his side. Kylo’s arms go out to bracket him, to keep him from falling, and they kneel together. Chewbacca cries out in alarm, fires the bowcaster at the stormtrooper who had shot, and more blaster fire raises from the platforms around them.

Kylo Ren looks up the stormtroopers, and lifts a hand, reaching for each of them with ravenous focus. They glow like small candles, and all it takes is a gentle press of darkness. They crumple, consciousness snuffed out. 

There is blood between Han’s fingers, but the wound is not deep. “Ben-” His father is looking at him with such profound relief, and such terror. “Ben, I-” 

“What’s the plan?” Kylo can feel his face drawn in a grimace, can feel adrenaline still pumping through him, feels apart from himself too, like he is watching this reunion from above. 

“Charges. We need to destroy the oscillator, destabilize the core,” Han explains quickly. He is clutching Kylo’s arms tightly, as if he is afraid he will suddenly disappear. 

Kylo looks up, around at the columns and the charges set there. At the figures above, backed by pale light. The weapon is nearly ready, and the Resistance base will soon be gone. He shakes his head, a quick jerk. His lips peel back from his teeth.

“It won’t be enough.” He can still do it. Rage thunders through him, bottles up in his throat and fills him and there is nowhere for it to go. The familiar feeling of its crystallization in the center of him, hardening, catching fire, makes him grit his teeth. He looks into Han Solo’s eyes, and clutches him back, both of them locked at the arms in vice-like grips.

“There are fighter pilots ready to bomb this place straight to hell, as soon as we break it open.”

X-wings. That might do it. He imagines the base in flames, and something like satisfaction pools in his gut. The darkness roils. The corridors of his head are empty; Snoke has left him alone for this trial, and he keeps these images away from the pathways between them. He swallows, weathers the push-pull of the Force inside of him, and nods.

He has failed this test. The truth of it is like a sudden ice bath, like he is being shoved back into his body after an impossibly long dream. The shame of it is devastating; he hasn’t felt like this in years, not since he was very young and very lost. 

When they stand, the look in Han’s eyes is a punch in the chest. What he would have given to be looked at like that as a child.

They make their way across the chasm, and Han Solo does not let go of him until they are well away from it. His hands tremble when they lower, and they leave a ghost of warmth and bruising through the thick material of Kylo’s uniform.

They climb to the upper platforms, and Kylo has to help Han, hauling him up with relative ease when he falters in pain. They leave drops of blood in a small trail on the metal. His father feels light, smaller than he remembers. Memories flash behind Kylo’s eyes, brief impressions of being picked up, of feeling so tall when he was very small.

“Chewie!” Han calls, and Kylo watches as the Wookiee gestures the detonator and roars. “Punch it and let’s get out of here! Before more of these moofs show up,” he adds in a mutter, scowling down at one of the fallen stormtroopers and nudging their boot in passing. 

Kylo is behind him, staring at his turned, trusting back.

Han turns to look at him. “Let’s go-” Home. Only there is no home. Not for Kylo Ren, or even Ben Solo, but he means the Millenium Falcon, of course. He means, ‘Let’s leave this place and whoever it is you’ve become.’

Kylo Ren’s hands are empty. He curls them into fists. He looks down at the bridge, at his helmet lying forgotten, metal on metal. Then he follows.

When the three of them reach the door at ground level, FN-2187 and the scavenger are staring at him with disbelief and some amount of terror. The girl has a blaster in her hand, half raised, and as he draws closer she falteringly brings it up to point at his chest. 

“Han?” FN-2187 demands, the real question unspoken as he looks between them. His hand is hovering over his own blaster, and he edges closer to the girl, as if to shield her. 

“Relax, big deal. Let’s get back to the Falcon.” Han does an admirable job of concealing the tremor in his voice with gruffness.

“If you think I’m getting on a ship with him-”

“He’s my son,” Han bites out, cutting him off. “And this place is about to blow. But if you want to stay here,” he spreads his hands wide, shoulders lifting in a shrug as if to say, ‘Be my guest.’

There is a tense silence, and their eyes - his, hers - flick to Kylo Ren.

He stares back impassively, gritting his teeth, nearly baring them. “You’re the one with the lightsaber,” he points out in a low voice, looking pointedly at the hilt at Finn’s belt. His grandfather’s. He would recognize it anywhere. He should like to know how the traitor came across it.

Chewie breaks the stand off with an indignant chuff, and rumbles at Han, bending to examine the blaster shot to his side.

“I’m fine Chewie. Get to the - no,” he swats away the Wookiee’s searching hands and says, “Get Ben to the Falcon, Chewie, start her up.” 

Chewie roars acknowledgement and hurries out the door into the cold. Kylo follows immediately after, ducking his head against the wind and snow, and hears the rest of them at his back. 

“We can’t stand around here all day, in case you haven’t noticed,” Han tells them.

“Do you know what he’s capable of?!” FN-2187 hisses, furious. “I saw him order the massacre of an entire village.”

“I know what my son is capable of,” his father’s voice is simultaneously cavalier and grim. He really, really doesn’t.

“He kidnapped Rey,” FN-2187 insists, positively seething. “Probably tortured her!”

“This could be a trick,” the girl - _Rey_ \- says, her voice low and wary. 

“Like I said,” Han growls, “If you’ve got a problem with it, you’re welcome to stay behind.” Stubborn. Uncompromising. 

Kylo resolutely does not turn to look at them, trudges through the snow and squints against the biting wind. The pale light casts cool, hazy shadows, and snowflakes quickly wet down his hair and bare face. He keeps his eyes on Chewie’s back. 

The charges erupt when they’re clear of the base, sending faint vibrations through the ground beneath their feet, and by the time they reach the Falcon, X-Wings are descending upon it, the sound of their engines distinguishable from the firing turrets and TIEs. 

The loading ramp is down, and Chewie is already heading gamely up it; at the top, he turns to look at Kylo, and calls out to him.

Kylo Ren sucks in a breath of cold air, and stares up at the hulking figure of the Wookiee, staunch and resolute, seeming so certain in his acceptance of the situation, so unwilling to leave him too far behind.

“I’m coming,” Kylo mutters. As soon as he is out of the wind he can hear the rest of them clanking up behind him, but Chewie is growling and beckoning him to follow to the cockpit. So he does, resolutely not looking too closely at anything that he passes. He was here just hours earlier, with a squadron of ground troops, searching the Falcon for their fugitives. Then, too, he had averted his eyes, the details too raw, the interior of the freighter dirty but the details as he remembers them.

He steps into the cockpit and watches Chewie initialize takeoff. Han is right behind them, and then he’s in the pilot’s chair, flipping switches and calling back to his younger companions, “Unless the X-wings work fast we’re going to have a lot of fire on our tail.”

FN-2187 and Rey file into the cockpit, and stand in the opposite corner from Kylo. They’ve still got hands on their blasters, like they’re expecting a sudden duel to take place here, finally. 

For a moment, Kylo’s eyes jump to Rey’s face, and it’s that same spooked, savage look she gave him from an interrogation chair. He thinks of nights spent in a desert, stomach empty and limbs heavy with exhaustion, but so full of hope and pain she could barely stand to close her eyes, to stop moving- 

He looks away, ahead, and fixes his face into something unreadable. 

“Sit down,” Han shoots back at them scathingly, scowling over his shoulder.

Kylo knows where an extra passenger seat and belt folds down behind the other two passenger chairs; he situates himself in silence and keeps his eyes on the viewport, jaw clenched.

The Falcon jolts, suddenly rocking, and the low, reverberating sound of an explosion somewhere below the ground is deafening.

FN-2187 and Rey rush to strap themselves in.

“That’s our cue,” Han grunts, and they’re lifting off, rising off the ground as it splinters, and the Falcon screams towards the atmosphere. 

They don’t see it when the planet explodes, a ball of fragmented light, but the force of it seems to propel them forward, the distant stars of dead space filling the cockpit’s viewport. 

In his periphery, Kylo can tell that Rey has her eyes on him instead, watchful. The pull of it is too much; he cuts his eyes toward her. His expression must be something terrible, because she flinches, but she also doesn’t look away. Her brow creases, and she glares back. 

Han activates the hyperdrive. 

The blue light of hyperspace bathes the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, and they hurtle towards D’Qar. 

Kylo Ren can feel something drop away, like a taut rope breaking, and he closes his eyes.

What has he done?


	2. Awake

They’re suspended, quiet, tense with the unreality of the moment, but Rey thinks she can feel them, all of them, sink into something like relief.

Han slumps a little in the corner of her eye, and Chewie is reprimanding him softly, trying to get another look at his wound.

She is looking at the profile of a man dressed in black, at his bare, damp face and closed eyes. 

Ben, Han had called him, and it’s such a simple name, so nondescript. One syllable, like hers.

Well, not quite like hers. She doesn’t have a second one to put after hers. Ben Solo. A terrified kind of hilarity almost makes her smile, and she realizes that her hands are white knuckled where they’re gripping the edge of her seat. 

Then the cockpit erupts in blinking red lights and a whining alarm.

“Kriffing-” Han looks at the readouts and then reaches for an overhead control, wincing as he does. “Remind me to go back to Jakku someday and kill that- that-”

“Plutt,” Rey supplies, eyes darting over the alarms. “The motivator again?”

“Afraid so. The entire hyperdrive needs to be gutted, temporary repairs are only going to do so much.”

Chewie rumbles plaintively.

“You got us on and off Starkiller in one piece, buddy. If we’d had more time to prepare we’d be in better shape.”

The Wookiee seems mollified, now that he’s sure his mechanical prowess isn’t being called into question.

Rey’s fingers twitch, itching as she thinks fast, picturing the insides of the Falcon, the SSP05 hyperdrive. “It’s too unstable. If we keep going-”

“At some point we’re toast, yeah.” Han points, wordlessly, across the console, and Chewie obligingly pries the cover off the navcomp interface, his large hands making easy work of it. Rey can’t see what he’s doing, but knows he must be overriding the command line. Sure enough, the incessant whine filling the cockpit gives way to a single, placid tone. The alarm readouts are once again replaced with hyperspace navigation, so that they can make a safe exit. 

“Dropping out of lightspeed,” Han grunts, and the rest of them lurch in surprise when the blue light is replaced by white, star lines stretching out and then focusing into sharp points. The cockpit dims into the softer, artificial glow of screens and backlit buttons.

“Well kids, looks like we’re taking a little break,” Han says wryly. Chewie climbs out of the co-pilot’s chair, and rumbles something about finding a medpac for Han.

There’s an edge of panic in Finn’s voice when he says, “How long are we stuck for?”

Han lifts his shoulder in a half shrug, tapping a dial absently. “We’ll come up with something. If all else fails, the nearest inhabited planet is... “ he peruses the navigation database, and looks pleasantly surprised. “About a twelve hour drive. So that’s good.”

Finn chokes. “Twelve hours. That’s great. We went from being on an enemy base, running from a mass murderer, to being _stuck in space_ with the mass murderer. Am I the only one that thinks this is completely insane?!” Finn looks to Rey with some amount of desperation, as if asking her to back him up.

Rey looks between each of them in turn. Finn, earnest and frayed. Han, worse for wear but still well enough to lay the sarcasm on thick. Han’s son, the mass murderer apparently, who is pinching the bridge of his nose and drawing his mouth in a strained, angry grimace.

On the one hand, Finn is right. The situation is insane, and she feels like if she takes her eyes off of this man she’ll be turning her back on a predator, something ready to sink its teeth into her. He practically exudes the energy of something unstable and raw. She thinks of the uneven hum of his lightsaber, how its beam had rippled and pulsed just inches from her face, unpredictable. She thinks of how still he had been when Han had dropped it into the depths of Starkiller. He could have hurt him, could have hurt her. 

She thinks of him rifling through her head, not just seeing her memories but tangibly feeling around in them. An invasive, suffocating pressure that makes her skin crawl even now, makes her think of hiding for hours in small places, desert heat practically choking her, and the fear of being found.

She thinks of his restraint, as well, how he had pulled back when she told him to, and how frighteningly easy it had been, once she had grasped how, to slip past his advance and into his own mind. It was as if she had overshot, had raced past the superficial, short term memories and ordinary thoughts, and had found herself neck deep in a central fear, an emotion that had felt vast and pervasive.

_‘You’re afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.’_

Darth Vader. Luke Skywalker. Who are these people to him? Not shadows, not mythical creatures as they had once been to her, characters in whispered legends on a desert planet, but real figures in his past. One dead but still a very real specter in his mind, like Vader has been pressed and sealed into him, something to be feared and cherished. The other a missing outline, filled in with hate, to be hunted like quarry.

She thinks of the terrible vision on Takodana, of rain and blood on his chromed mask.

He is glaring darkly at nothing, apparently choosing not to dignify Finn’s words with a response. 

Rey watches Han curl his hands into fists and thump them, once, on the console. His head is bent forward, and somehow Rey knows that he is at the end of his capacity to deal with any more disasters today. They all are; they’re heavy with exhaustion and cold and now that the adrenaline is wearing down, they’re feeling it.

But they’re hanging in the vastness of space with an unexpected passenger, and they can’t stay here. 

She sucks in a breath, rallying with the ease of someone practiced in stretching her will past the point that feels possible. “Depending on what you have with you, I might be able to wire a temporary ignition loop, give the motivator something to blow off steam on. That might get us far enough.”

Han nods, turning his head far enough to give her a small, grateful quirk of his lips. The crooked slant of an expression makes a sudden bolt of relief shoot through her; this man is alive. They are all alive and she is so, so grateful. 

She’s not sure how, but she knows that things could have gone very differently, senses it with bone deep certainty.

“Chewie can help you find everything. Get started, I’ll send a transmission to D’Qar so our friends know we weren’t incinerated.”

“D’Qar,” Rey frowns, and she looks to Finn in amazement. “You got to the Resistance base. What happened on Takodana?” A glance at the silent man across the cockpit assures her he is still staring out the viewport, his expression more controlled, his posture rigid. 

She realizes that she doesn’t even know how much time has passed, how long she was incapacitated, and the idea of being so helpless makes her stomach churn bitterly. The sense of being unsafe in this confined space, feet away from someone who had been her captor only hours before, intensifies.

“Resistance fighters rescued us,” Finn tells her, managing a smile. “Poe Dameron was one of them, he’s alive. BB-8 is-” he cuts his eyes toward their guest as well, suddenly wary. “BB-8 made it back to the base.”

They watch him suddenly dart his eyes toward them, expression darkening. 

Rey hears Finn swallow thickly, and he lowers his voice to a whisper to tell her, “They don’t have the rest of the map yet, just that piece. I met General Organa; I convinced her to let me - us - come get you.”

“You mean you lied,” Han grumbles, “And nearly got everyone killed.”

“It turned out alright, didn’t it?” He glances at Han’s son. “For the most part.”

Chewie returns to the cockpit with a medpac, and he shoves it into Finn’s hands unceremoniously, sweeping an arm toward Han and roaring sternly.

“Yup, got it,” Finn says quickly, holding up a placating hand and hurrying out of his seat to perch in the copilot’s. He winces at the sight of Han’s bloody shirt, pausing with a tube of bacta and a handful of gauze. “Do you want to take off your...”

Han snorts, and reaches forward to dig a packet of cleansing pads from the medpac, peeling back the cloth of his ruined shirt and tearing the packet open with his teeth. “Chewie,” he says around the paper before spitting it out, “The kid’s going to help you with the hyperdrive.”

Chewie beckons to Rey, and she hesitates. 

_He_ is looking at her; he still hasn’t said a word, he’s just sitting there, looking for all the galaxy like a lost gnawjaw, ready to snap at anything that comes close. And now he’s looking at her, accusatory. She can feel her hackles raise, feels an indignation and anger. He has no right to look at her like she is the one keeping him prisoner now.

Chewie warbles reassuringly, and nudges her arm.

She frowns; she still doesn’t want to leave them alone with him, but the sooner the hyperdrive is in working condition, the sooner they can get to the Resistance base, where they might be better prepared to deal with him.

“You don’t know that I won’t.” His voice is that same unnaturally low pitch, soft, and she blinks, taking a moment to realize he’s responding to Chewie.

“Then you are going to hurt us?” she demands before she can censor herself, automatically taking a defensive posture, a hand going to her blaster after it reaches reflexively for a staff that isn’t there.

He stands, abruptly, and the sudden motion makes her jump. It takes every ounce of will not to shrink back from him; he seems to fill up the entire space in the span of that moment, tension bringing his shoulders back, his arms and solid fists vibrating with energy. Finn drops the medpac with a clatter, leaping to his feet. Rather than his blaster, which is propped against his seat, he holds the lightsaber hilt in his hands, fingers curling around it. 

Rey still doesn’t raise her blaster, just holds her trembling fingers around it, at the ready.

He bares his teeth at her, and the hatred in his expression is violent and startling. She feels the press of something, as if he is tamping down the impulse to hold her in place with the force.

The force.

Rey sucks in a breath and feels, reaching out tentatively, blindly. She doesn’t know how it’s meant to be done, only how she thinks it must feel like, how it felt when she tumbled into his head accidentally, when she superimposed her own will over that of a stormtrooper’s. 

She blinks in surprise when she’s successful; the sensation of him is immediately distinctive from anyone else in the cockpit (because she can feel them too, little niggling signatures, like conversations she’s not trying to listen to.) He stings, almost, like touching water that’s too hot, and she captures brief impressions of frustration, anger, desperation. And a vastness, dizzying, as if she’s suddenly at the edge of a precipice, looking down at something that’s harder to find a name for.

And then it is like a door shuts on her fingers, and she reels back, unsure if the pain is physical or only in her head. It makes her gasp and take an actual step backward, and then Finn is front of her. 

She can’t see his face but his voice is a gravelly grit, darker than she’s used to hearing when he growls out, “Ren.” His thumb is hovering over the power switch on the lightsaber, and he has it raised, sinking into the stance of someone ready to fight. “Don’t even think about trying-”

Chewie roars at them, and in a long stride he steps between Finn and Ren. When he shoves a heavy, furred hand against Ren’s chest the man suddenly looks incredulous rather than malignant. Being boxed around by a Wookiee makes him look more like a teenager stepping out of line, and he must know it, because he’s furious, looks like he's about to sputter something scathing. 

“Hey,” Han’s voice booms, the bark of a general, and when they turn their heads he is half standing, half still in his chair, awkwardly holding bloody gauze and the tube of bacta, some of the shining salve stuck to his fingers.

“Will everyone please shut up and do their jobs?” Han says, a sarcastic mockery of politeness. “Chewie, take Rey to get what she needs, and you two work on the hyperdrive.” He points the bacta at Finn, “You help me with this before I bleed out and stain the upholstery.” He looks at Ren and his breath leaves him in a gust. “Sit down. Please. It’s going to be ok.”

Rey can’t tear her eyes off Ren, her chest heaving, and in fact none of them move until Ren concedes, sweeping his robes to the side brusquely and lowering himself, arms braced against his thighs. “That lightsaber belongs to me.” The words are bitter and quiet.

Han scoffs. “That’s debatable.”


	3. Careful

Kylo Ren watches Finn wind a bandage around Han Solo’s midsection. He watches him support the other man’s weight when he has to bend forward. His hands are gentle, careful. Kylo grits his teeth.

Han shoots him a look over Finn’s shoulder that is hard to decipher, but it folds into a smile after a moment, small and weathered.

He doesn’t know what to think in the face of his father’s relief, his hope that is so sharp he can feel the cut of it between them. He doesn’t know when he had stopped being only Han Solo, or if he ever was to begin with.

Fifteen years cannot have only been a nightmare filled with delusion, it has been too real. And yet.

“Is that too tight?” Finn asks Han, as he fastens a clip to hold the bandage in place.

“Nah, kid, that’s perfect. Thanks.”

Finn nods, sits across from him, and idly puts the tube of bacta back in the medpac, snapping it closed. 

Han scratches his jaw after he has tugged his shirt back down, casting his eyes about as if he’s looking for something. “Why don’t you, ah… Why don’t you go see if Rey and Chewie need any help?”

Finn hesitates, shooting an obvious glance toward Kylo Ren’s hunched form.

“What am I going to do, throw him out the viewport?” Kylo says scathingly, nearly choking on the words from the way he spits them out. 

Finn looks at him steadily for a moment, dark and even, taking Kylo by surprise with the strength of his regard. He remembers the moment on Jakku, the same faces looking back at each other from behind masks. He’d known something then. He wonders what would have happened differently if had chosen to do something about it.

He almost expects Finn to say something this time, almost expects a threat, some kind of posturing or bravado. Instead, Finn picks up his blaster and vacates the cockpit, telling Han over his shoulder, “Call if you need us.” He has taken the lightsaber with him; Kylo sees it attached at his hip. 

When they are alone, Han and Kylo look at one another. An uneasy feeling bubbles in the pit of his stomach; nervousness, he realizes. 

“When we arrive at the… Resistance base,” Kylo says, slightly contemptuous, “Am I going to be held at gunpoint or shot on sight?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Han says instantly, his eyes not wavering from Kylo’s.

“Your influence holds enough weight to keep that promise?” 

“Your mother’s does.”

Kylo flinches hard, like the woman in question had suddenly appeared in the doorway and barked his name.

Han opens his mouth, and then closes it. It’s a familiar kind of moment, though it shouldn’t be for all the time that has passed between them. But the discomfort, the not knowing what to say after a sudden misstep, it’s the same. He is fifteen again and burning with shame that he shouldn’t have to feel anymore. 

The small, conciliatory smile Han gives him is worse. He can’t stand it. “Why don't you get some rest? It might be awhile. I’ll get a message to Leia.”

“What are you going to tell her?” He hates the thickness of his voice, watered and heavy.

“The truth. That you’re coming back with me.”

Kylo looks away, breathes. Speaking to Han is like stretching something that has become unfamiliar and painful, but it’s easier if he’s not looking straight at him. He is so weak. 

“She wants you back,” Han tells him softly. “We both do. We’ll do anything to have you back.” Han’s voice cracks, and the memory of holding his lightsaber in front of this man’s chest is dizzying. 

Kylo can only nod, his jaw clenched so tightly it feels like he might chip a tooth. 

“You remember where the bunk is?”

“Of course,” Kylo says, his voice a little hoarse.

“Go get some rest,” Han repeats. “I’ll come get you when we’re ready.”

Go collect yourself. It sounds like a good idea. Kylo nods, and forces himself to meet his father’s eyes for a long moment before he leaves the cockpit.

His steps are even and measured down the corridor. He goes past the first bunk, opts for the one farthest from the cockpit. He swings himself onto one of the three beds, and the smell of old dust and dirt isn’t what he remembers, but the awkward lumps in the padding is. He dangles an arm over the side, feeling along the metal edge. His fingers bump over faint indentations, his name scratched into the metal, from when he was barely old enough to know how to spell it.  
He jerks his hand back and sits up quickly, arranging himself so that he is cross legged, back against the wall. He let’s out a shaky breath, and tries to quiet his thoughts. 

After a moment the collar under his chin becomes too much, too stifling, the layers of his uniform too hot. He tugs at his collar, but is unwilling to remove his outer robes. He endures it, and places his hands on his knees, focusing on his breath. He welcomes the uncomfortable sensations as something external to distract him from anything internal.

He drifts in and out of a simple meditation in this way; each time he finds his doubts at the front of his mind, he acknowledges them and goes back to his immediate physical presence. The breath in his chest. His heart. His gloved hands and the stiff belt at his waist. 

Hours later, it’s not Han who comes to get him; it’s Rey. And he doesn’t hear her until she is in the doorway, until she taps the pads of her fingers on the frame intentionally. She moves like a ghost. 

When he opens his eyes and turns his head, he sees the tired way her shoulders are a little slumped, and the smears of something dark and dingy along her forearms. There is a new little singe on the collar of her shirt, and she has stripped off the long scarves of her desert outfit. They must have had practical uses on Jakku; he wonders what they are. 

She is eyeing him with something between wariness and dislike, and puzzlement too, like he has done something to confuse her.

Kylo exhales a long breath and untangles his legs from one another, splaying them out so that his boots are on the floor, and he leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He cloaks his presence in the force as well as he knows how, so that should she go looking, she will not find his feelings or his thoughts.

To his surprise, she sits on the bunk across from him, mimicking his posture, and he can see the way that she does not relax, even as she brings herself in such close proximity. 

He looks straight at her, and she meets his eyes readily enough but ducks her chin a little. It’s a defensive motion; she is someone who has been afraid for her life a few too many times at too young of an age. Like an animal who was never socialized, never loved, she will probably never be quite normal, never perfectly assimilated into whatever home she chooses. Always tucking in her chin, always a little too watchful. 

“Finn says you’re called Kylo Ren,” she says matter-of-factly. Even though she’s leaning forward, elbows on her knees, her back is rigid. The suddenness of her voice in the silence feels abrupt. Her voice is clear, cool, like she has purposefully done away with fear. Or at least hidden it well.

He holds onto the rhythm of his breath, and keeps his perception from reaching out reflexively. 

“Yes,” he says simply after a moment. The sound of his own voice irks him; too soft, he thinks. He can see the way her face smooths just a bit as she looks at him, they’re eyes level. He doesn't know what she sees there, keeps himself firmly inside his own head, but he wishes he had something to cover himself with, to turn his voice sharp.

“Han calls you Ben.”

He feels his mouth tighten, feels the urge to get up and move, a not quite nervous and not quite angry energy making him itch. He stays where he is, and stares back at her, refusing to falter. “Yes.”

“So what should I call you?” The tilt and cast of her expression is almost shy. The softer lighting of the millennium falcon gives her face a warm sort of glow, and this is the first time he has seen it so calm, except for in sleep.

It isn’t what he expected, this tentative stab at peaceful interaction. She is braver than he thought, or more stupid. He suspects it’s the first.

“It doesn’t matter what you call me.”

She frowns, a little twitch of irritation. “Why?”

“If I’m not taken prisoner…” he considers, “Maybe I’ll be executed. Either way I doubt you’ll have much chance to use any name I give you.” He doesn’t believe for a second that he is going to walk into that base and be welcomed as a guest.

“I don't think the Republic executes people,” she furrows her brow, as if she’s not completely sure.

He carefully lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “With the current state of things they may need to save time. Prisoners require resources.” In all honesty, he has no idea. They’ll probably want to interrogate him at the very least.. They may, at some point, give him a chance to swear fealty to the Republic and fight for them. 

If he escapes now, he thinks, they won’t be able to find him. He could take an escape pod, get to the nearest planet. Disappear.

Or return to the First Order. Perhaps that is what he deserves. 

She is frustrated, he can tell, by his uncooperative behavior. If she expects him to roll over like a dog desperate for attention, she is going to be disappointed.

Instead of getting angry, though, she arches an eyebrow at him and says, “Kylo Ren is a ridiculous name.”

He keeps himself from frowning.

She waits, and when he is not forthcoming she says, sober, “Did you choose it?”

Kylo narrows his eyes at her. “Ren is common to all of the Knights of Ren.”

“Like Darth?” 

He shakes his head minutely. “It’s nothing to do with the Sith. And I was- am the only force user among them.” He pauses, and when she continues to listen he says, “Ren is an old word. I don’t know the language. The Supreme Leader has said it translates roughly to domination.”

Rey’s nose wrinkles ever so slightly, a little furrow of discontent. “And Kylo?”

“I chose that,” he admits steadily.

“Why? What does it mean?”

He breathes. “It doesn’t mean anything.” It’s just sounds, just letters pressed close together. Just something other than Ben.

“What does it mean to you?”

“It meant being reborn.” He feels like he needs to clear his throat; it’s thick with something. They are still eye to eye, and he doesn’t look away. But he wants to. 

“Into what?” she whispers, as if she's unsure if she wants an answer.

He tilts his chin up, thinks, and then says slowly, “Anything else.” 

Her brow furrows; she looks gutted. If he opens his perception just slightly, if he gives into the temptation, he can sense a curl of empathy. 

“I could help you,” he tells her. The words are out of him before he has time to think about them too much.

“What?” She blinks back at him, nonplussed. 

“Natural talent will only get you so far. There are things you can’t learn on your own. You need a teacher.”

She stares at him.

“I can show you the ways of the force.” And he means it. She is strong, but she could be so much more. She could be so powerful, such an ally to have.

A whispering part of him says that she would be such a gift, such an offering to the Supreme Leader if he returned with her loyalty.

Rey sits upright, eyes going wide and flashing. “You mean show me how to terrorize and kill people like you?”

“Among other things. You could be great.” He watches the way a glare creases her face; she bares her teeth the way that he does, he realizes. They are both a little wild. 

“I’d rather be good.”

“You’re wasting your time with childish conceptions like good and evil. They’re stories." He spreads his fingers wide, stretching the palms of his hands. "In reality there is only strong and weak.” 

“Saying something as if it’s logical doesn't make it true,” she spits. Her hands are small fists, resting on her knees.

He feels his nostrils flare, feels frustration bubble up in his chest, quickening his breath. He points a finger at his own chest. “I am not good. But I am powerful. And I can do more with that power than any amount of goodness. Goodness doesn't feed the hungry, it doesn’t stop wars.”

“It doesn’t start them, either.” Her voice is getting louder.

“Doesn’t it?” he tilts his head, examining the way she fumes visibly. “Weren't the Jedi, in between spouting messages of peace, at war with the dark side?”

“The Jedi were protectors.”

“Which meant labeling something evil and _fighting_ it. You don’t have to. You don’t have to fight what’s in your nature.”

“What- my nature?” That derails her, suspicion lighting up her eyes.

“I felt how you wanted to kill me.” It’s getting out of hand, he’s stuck on it now, and he wants her to understand like he wants to drive plasma through melting metal.

“You were chasing me with a lightsaber,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Of the two of us, you are the only one who has wanted to kill the other.” He can feel her indignation, having lost his focus, his control. Her presence in the force is welled up, expansive. “Which of us is good and which is evil?”

“I don't have to be either. I’m not trying to be a Jedi. I don't want to be,” she is vehement, and he thinks there is a color of fear, too.

“Good.”

“But I also don't want to be you.”

He smiles thinly at her. “There are worse things to be.”

She glares and quiets her reaction, grinding out in a measured tone, “What are you trying to be, then? Why are you here?”

The whir and hum of the ship and all its parts fills up the silence between them. “I’m here because I couldn't kill my father. I was tested, and I failed.”

She blinks, as if suddenly remembering that fact. Her face softens into something conflicted, but not angry. “So much for power.”

He nods once after a moment, a bitter taste rising in his mouth. “Yes.”

She is quiet for a time, and they sit together. He watches the way her fingers worry absently against a frayed edge of her desert clothing. “I don't know if Rey is my real name.”

He stares.

“I think I might have come up with it as a child. I don't remember anyone ever calling me Rey.”

“If that’s true, then in a way you’re lucky you got to choose,” he says, and he can see she doesn’t like that, can see the bitterness that fills up her face like a wave.

“And you’re lucky to have Han Solo for a father. You’re lucky to have the name Ben.”

“That’s debatable,” he echoes his father’s word sardonically.

“It’s not,” she says, low and fervent, and he senses the polarizing whorls of her emotions, suddenly chaotic and intense. “It’s not, because he loves you _so much_.” Her eyes are wet. “And coming up with something to be called doesn’t mean I got to choose anything.” She looks away for the first time, like she regrets getting worked up in this way, and she sniffs brusquely, swiping the back of one hand under eyes, catching a bit of moisture. “The hyperdrive is good to go,” she finally says, harsh, trying to get back to the anger. 

The urge is there, to keep her here, to see the things he can’t with just his eyes, to understand the strange push-pull tide that is her emotions rising and falling from her face in turns. She is like sand shifting over more sand; he can see her, sense her, but without pushing, without invading in the way that he does, he cannot understand the weight of this sudden change. 

He is used to pushing, to laying bare the skeleton of someone’s life and picking out the fears like morsels of flesh. He has seen some of hers, has felt a longing so sharp it tasted like metal and blood, and the desire is there to push further. 

But she will push back. She fights, and she fights well. And he is not brave enough to risk his own fears just to understand. He lets it go, and pretends it's not a kindness.

He nods, gets to his feet, and gestures toward the door. “Time to meet my fate, then.” He’s not sure how he means to say it, but it sounds small to his ears. 

She keeps her eyes away from him as she strides past, and he gives it a few moments before following, until her footsteps have rounded the corner, so that he does not have to look at her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this one is a little rough, I wanted to get it up tonight so my editing might not be great. Thank you so much for all of the comments you guys have left me!! I seriously cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.


	4. Healed

When they break from hyperspace, D’Qar looms large, green and blue and grey-white whorls in its atmosphere. 

Rey feels something immediately, something wide and magnetic. It reminds her of Kylo Ren, of the way his presence is impossible to ignore, like someone shining a harsh light in her peripheral, sending little spots across her vision. This is different, far, but unmistakeable. 

The planet fills the viewport as they approach, and she puzzles over the feeling, the pull that feels emotional and huge.

She tries to glance covertly in Kylo’s direction; he is standing, filled with tension, bracing himself against a console and hulking behind them with his brow furrowed. Like he can feel her eyes on his face, he looks back at her instantly. 

He feels it too. She doesn’t know how she knows it, but she does. And he knows what it is. 

Rey frowns thoughtfully, quirks her brows at him in silent question. He dips his chin just a little in acknowledgement, mouth a tense line. She’ll understand soon enough.

Blinking like she is coming to her senses, Rey balks at the intimacy of their small exchange. Unease prickles the back of her neck and tightens her throat, and she averts her eyes quickly. Through the viewport, she can see the landscape unfolding before them, green and burnt gold and blue veins; trees become discernible, mountains and rolling hills blanketed in thick cloaks of forests that look tangled and deep. Where Takodana had been serene, D’Qar is wild and muted and dark. It is late, the slight vestiges of a sunset on the horizon as they descend through the atmosphere. The world is beginning to go gray and soft and quiet. She can see wind moving through the foliage, and the pattern of it mesmerizing. 

She used to watch ripples form in the sand outside her AT-AT home in the evening, liked to pretend that they were waves on a wide expanse of water, that every dune was an enormous swell. This terrain is so alive compared to her desert, and it is like each tree is waving a welcoming signal, or a warning. 

“Let’s bring her down,” Han murmurs, he and Chewie working in tandem, easy complements. 

Rey’s heart beats faster, a feeling of anticipation building in her. As the Falcon lowers to a landing space, she can see Resistance ships lining the cement strip, transports and T-85 X-wings, and enormous openings, bays that must lead down into the base.

The Resistance is here. She thinks of her cracked, clouded helmet, and her small, cobbled together doll. She is here, not dreaming of faraway places but really in the faraway places. 

There is a small envoy waiting for them, a medical droid, she thinks, and two figures.

The whirring downslide of the Falcon’s engines leave them in pensive quiet. Han turns to look at Finn and her, and he jerks his chin in a clear ‘get moving’ gesture. Chewie warbles softly.

Rey looks at Finn, breath catching with sudden nerves. Finn glances at her, catches the frozen expression on her face. He reaches out and places a warm hand on the back of hers where she is gripping her seat tightly, squeezing her wrist in gentle reassurance. His smile is easy and confident; his relief at their arrival is palpable. They are safe. They made it.

Rey sucks in a deep breath and nods, returning his smile with a small quirk of her lips. She feels affection radiate through her like a balm, and she clutches his hand back for moment. 

This is her friend, and he is the first person who came back for her. He came back for her, and they are alive and they are together. Regardless of what happens from this point on, if she stays or goes back to her corner of the galaxy, she will have had this. The squeeze of emotion in her chest is a good feeling, but it hurts all the same. 

“Let’s go,” she whispers, and Finn nods.

“You’ll like it,” he promises her. 

They leave the cockpit, Chewbacca following, and as Rey is about to turn the corner, she glances back. She sees that Kylo has taken the seat beside his father and his arms are two angular corners, his hands gripping the seat so hard they fairly shake. She watches just long enough to see Han shuffle forward in his seat far enough to grip the back of Kylo’s neck and bring their foreheads together firmly, saying something in a low voice. It looks like a desperate moment, like someone is being talked down from a ledge, and Rey ducks her head away, following after Finn and Chewie.

As they’re coming down the loading ramp, the small group is approaching, ready to receive them. The medical droid is a thin column of pale gray, not quite humanoid, and the woman beside it must be medical personnel too; she has a bag with supplies and a brown and white uniform. 

Beside her is another woman, dressed unremarkably, but she is distinguishable immediately.

Rey stops, and looks at her, and realizes that this, this woman is the source that feeling.

This woman is powerful; Rey can see it as plain as day, though there isn’t much light and the specifics of her features are hard to see. Her stout outline and the large braids wound around her head are apparent, and the slash of her mouth. It’s like being bowled over by the breath of a giant.

This is Leia, this is a woman as great as the sky; she is never ending, a great pool that Rey feels she could fall into as easily as taking a step; it’s terrifying. 

“Rey,” her low voice is motherly and commanding all at once, dark and soothing. “And Finn, welcome back.” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” Finn says, at the base of the loading ramp, standing up very straight. “This is-” he cuts, off, looking back at her and gesturing for her to come forward. At her shoulder, Chewie growls gently. Rey does, steadily, her steps even, gripping her staff and squaring her shoulders a bit. When she is at his side the smile Finn gives her is like the sun. “This is Rey.” He sounds proud; it provokes a little squirming feeling inside her chest. “Rey, this is General Leia Organa.”

Rey nods hesitantly. “Hello. Ma’am,” she adds belatedly, and feels a little embarrassed as she watches a warm smile spread over Leia’s lips. She is beautiful. 

“I’m so glad to meet you, Rey,” she says softly, with weight. “You two have done a wonderful thing. For me, and for the Republic.” 

Chewie warbles, and Leia says with a smile that speaks of deep friendship, “Yes, you too.” She then gestures at the woman beside her, who smiles wanly at them. “And this is Doctor Kalonia. I believe you and Chewie are already acquainted.”

“Oh yes,” Kalonia says mildly.

Rey sees Leia glance behind them, simultaneously hears a pair of boots on the metal of the loading ramp. She looks back, and sees Han and Kylo at the top. Han has a hand on his arm, grip tight, as if to keep him from running. Kylo’s face is drawn and pale, and reminiscent of the moment he had been so taken aback by her invasion of his mind on Starkiller Base. He looks terrified.

“Ben,” Leia murmurs, and when Rey looks back at her her stomach drops like a stone.

Leia’s face is controlled, but there are tears welling up in her eyes. Immediately, Rey’s eyes feel wet in response. Han is his father, but this-

Leia Organa is his mother. And no one told her that, but she knows it like she knows she has ten toes inside her boots. And she is already tired of feeling and knowing things without knowing why, is tired of being spooked by this new ability to tap into something bigger than herself, but there it is. Han Solo and Leia Organa are Kylo Ren’s parents, and she is simultaneously awed and furious.

She is only Rey, she reminds herself. Just Rey; the conviction calms her, centers her.

Leia Organa is quickly getting herself under control, but the slant of her mouth remains slightly askew, like she is still on the verge of sobbing, and she says, “It’s very important that we get you to a safe place.” She swallows, and chokes a little when she says, “Will you come?”

Rey looks back at Kylo; he opens his mouth but doesn’t seem to trust his voice, because he closes it soon after and only nods. His eyes are burning, wet, and his face cuts to the side a little when Han claps a hand on his shoulder, holds it in another bruising grip. 

“Everyone else will get checked out for injuries before they turn in for the night,” Leia says a little more severely, and she is looking pointedly at Han. 

“I’m going with Ben.”

“You’re going to the medbay first.”

“Nope,” he says, clipped, anger starting to harden him. 

“It’s-” Kylo’s voice is jarring after his silence; it seems to automatically put everyone on edge, including Doctor Kalonia. 

Rey wonders how much she knows, wonders if she’s ever lost anyone because of him. 

“It’s fine,” he tells Han, who tries to shake his head. “It’s fine. Go.”

Han grits his teeth. Rey can tell that he’s in pain from his uneven stance and the pallor of his face; he’s lost some blood and needs more than a quick patch up job with bacta.

“I’ll come find you straight after,” Han says, and it sounds almost like a warning, at odds with the gentle cast of his gaze on Kylo’s face. 

The medical droid whirs forward when Han is at the base of the loading ramp, already running scans as unobtrusively as possible. 

The four of them are hurried across the strip and into the base by Kalonaia, but Rey can’t help but look over her shoulder. Finn is looking too, like he cannot believe they are leaving him alone with the General. “Han, should we really-”

“Don’t worry, kid,” Han says. “She’s better equipped to deal with him than any of us. Believe me.”

Behind them, Kylo Ren is standing before his mother, shoulders hunched forward like her gravity is pulling him in, towering above her but looking brittle in comparison. D’Qar’s wind whips the hem of his robes about his ankles gently. He looks like a ghostly sentinel, come to tell Leia Organa a piece of bad news. Rey doesn’t see their lips move, just sees them standing, sees Leia place a hand over her own heart.

Rey tears her eyes away, blinking back moisture, and they file through a dim corridor, exterior door shutting firmly behind them.

Chewie supports some of Han’s weight as they walk; the man doesn’t protest, a testament to his exhaustion and pain. Finn speaks to Rey quietly, his low voice reverberating soothingly off the concrete walls, telling her about his first visit here. He fills in the details that are empty between them from the time spent apart. 

He describes the bustle of the Resistance base and its activities, a stark difference from the bare quiet of the corridor they are taking. They pass no one, but a few times they pass doors that Rey can hear sound behind; muffled voices and the hum of showers, she thinks. The closer they get to the medbay, the more lit the hallways become, the less bare the walls. 

The medbay itself is well stocked and pristine; there are no patients and no personnel save for Kalonia. 

“Go ahead and have a seat,” she tells Rey and Finn, as Chewie helps Han up to seat himself on an exam table. “Just a quick check up for you two.” Her voice is easy, casual, but Rey doesn’t miss the astute way her eyes travel over them, sharp and analytical. “You’ve been through a lot.”

She sets about tending to Han, and the medical droid comes up to scan Finn, who sits obligingly still and, when it is requested, extends his arm so that the droid can take a small blood sample. 

“Rest and replacement of fluids is recommended. Topical bacta salve for any contusions. A sedative may be administered if the patient is disturbed by their recent experiences. Further consultation with a mental health professional is recommended for patients who have experienced trauma.” The droid’s modulated voice runs through the diagnosis in an imitation of clinical calm, and wheels over to a supply shelf to retrieve water, a nutrition bar, and a small tube of bacta with its pronged hands, deftly placing them on a small tray which it offers to Finn.

“No sedative, thanks,” Finn says, tearing open the nutrition bar and fairly inhaling it, before doing the same with the hydration pack. His hands are steady. 

Rey flinches back reflexively when the droid turns toward her and extends its scanner.

“Just a routine scan,” it reassures her instantly in its flat vocals. 

She holds still, and when the droid requests her arm, she unfolds it from where it’s wrapped around her waist and frowns as the droid reaches forwards with a small capsule. The needle at the end is barely visible, and the prick is slight when it is pressed against the crook of her elbow. She exhales when it’s over, and rubs the spot curiously. It doesn’t bleed.

“You ever had one of those before?” Finn asks her, looking at her with something between amusement and sympathy.

Rey shakes her head, a small breath of laughter escaping her at her own fear over such a small thing. “Never,” she tells him, silently marvelling at the medical droid. It’s the first she’s ever seen in person. 

“Patient exhibits signs of malnutrition; immediate implementation of a meal plan for weight and muscle gain is recommended. A booster will be administered in the meantime.” An then it repeats the same phrases of Finn’s diagnosis. “Rest and replacement of fluids is recommended. Topical bacta salve for any contusions. A sedative may be administered if the patient is disturbed by their recent experiences. Further consultation with a mental health professional is recommended for patients who have experienced trauma.” 

Rey smiles at it; the smooth, gray face has a friendly shape to it, she realizes, the grate over its vocal box approximating a gentle smile. When it asks for her arm again she doesn’t hesitate, watching curiously as it moves to aim a needle at her upper arm this time. The sudden, sharp sting takes her by surprise, and she glares at it, affronted. “That hurt! You could have warned me.”

She hears Finn snort, and turns her scowl on him instead. He holds up his hands in defense, grinning widely at her. 

Even Han is smiling as a new bandage is applied over his wound, and Chewie trills a short laugh.

“I’m glad I amuse you all,” Rey mutters, ducking her head to hide her own smile. She really is.

When Han’s treatment is complete, he is up and out without much ceremony, snatching up the offered hydration pack and waving a cursory hand at his younger companions. “Good night, kids,” he throws over his shoulder before heading gamely down the corridor, Chewbacca following after him at a more sedate pace.

After that, Doctor Kalonia shows Finn and Rey to their rooms, pointing out a few things to them along the way. The direction of the mess hall, exits to the ground level, and rec areas. Rey can tell that she does not ordinarily perform tasks like this, but she doesn’t seem bothered.

Their rooms are side by side, in a wing of the base that doesn’t seem to be housing anyone else from the stark silence of it. When Kalonia leaves them alone in the hallway, Rey looks to Finn in bemusement. “We get our own rooms.” She’s not sure what she expected, but she has never had a room _prepared_ for her. Glancing at the closed door of the one that is supposed to be hers, she feels uneasy about it. 

“Are you ok?” Finn asks her softly, genuine concern marring his face.

Rey shrugs. “Malnourished, apparently, but otherwise fine.” A meal plan, the medical droid had said. They’re going to _feed_ her, too. 

“I mean-” Finn breaks off, looking hesitant to say whatever it is he wants to.

“What?” Rey steps closer and leans against the wall of the corridor. Her limbs feel tired and heavy.

Finn mirrors her posture, tilting his head to examine her face. “You said he didn’t hurt you, but-” he frowns, hunches towards her like it will comfort him. “What did he do? I saw Poe after his interrogation, he was all bloodied up.”

Rey shakes her head, looking down at the floor. “He didn’t, I’m fine. He-” she felt her own face crease in consternation at the memory. “He used the force, he tried to get into my head. To see my memories.”

“Tried?” 

She nods, meeting Finn’s eyes. “I stopped him from getting to what he wanted.”

Relief relaxes his shoulders in a visible slump. “But how?”

“That just it, I don’t-” she can’t say she doesn’t know. She knows. She just doesn’t understand why. “Somehow… Somehow I got into his head.”

Finn blinks at her.

“I used the force.”

“You used the force?” he hisses, incredulous and amazed at once.

“On him, and then on a stormtrooper, to get away. I don’t understand where it came from,” she insists, swallowing a lump of fear, “But I did it.”

Finn is quiet for a moment, watching her with searching eyes. “Does this mean you’re a-” he seems hesitant, “a Jedi?”

Rey snorts before she can stop herself. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Have you been able to do things like that before?”

“No.” She shakes her head. Except - there have been moments, haven’t there, since first piloting the Falcon. Moments of intuition that have been very, very lucky. “I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Finn grasps her arm, “It’s ok. We’ll figure it out. I’ll help you any way I can.”

The reassurance settles over her like warm water. It doesn’t mean that it will be ok, but it means that they’re together through it. Rey wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him to her in a hug, ignoring the way her hands shake a little. “Thank you,” she whispers, and she means _thank you for coming back, thank you for being brave, thank you for finding me_.

He clutches her back, solid and real.

When they separate and say good night, Rey doesn’t think she’ll ever have to tell him ‘Don’t go.’ again. 

Rey’s quarters are sparse and gray but more comfortable and clean than anything she’s ever seen. She runs her fingertips over the bedspread, marvelling at the newness of the fabric, the evenness of its color. It feels cool and smooth, and so does her metal nightstand. The lamp and datapad on top of it are the only objects in the room other than a simple trunk at the base of the bed and a change of clothes on top of the bedspread. There is a shelf along one wall, but it is empty.

She picks up the clothes, shakes them out and holds them up to her body. They are nondescript, a simple dark shirt and pants, perfectly clean and a little big. 

She leans her staff against the wall and undoes her belt, dropping it on the floor. She investigates the refresher feeling too grimy to get into the bed in her current state. She knows there must be water available, but can’t work up the nerve to use it. She can count the number of sonic showers she’s had, can remember what they feel like, at least, so she opts for one of those.

Stripping down and deciphering the dials on the wall, she turns it on and feels the pulse reverberate through her, standing her hair on end and removing the deep set dirt from her skin. 

It is enough. She tugs on the clean shirt and slides beneath the blankets, turning off the lamp with a touch before laying back.

It’s too different, too much, too clean and too large.

To get to sleep, Rey breathes, closes her eyes, and imagines an ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your feedback! I've got finals coming up, but I'll still be writing and I love hearing from you. If anyone wants to talk to me, I've made a[ tumblr](artificialsleeping.tumblr.com/) for that sort of thing, so don't be shy.
> 
> Since Leia has made an appearance, I should say that Bloodline is going to be largely disregarded for this story. I've only just started it, but from what I understand the timeline is different. Basically the whole time I'm writing this I am cherry picking lore and shrugging my shoulders.


	5. Burned

Kylo tries to remember the last time he sat across from his mother for any length of time. He thinks he might have been thirteen. He tries to pick out the differences in her face. It is lined, drawn with emotion. Her cheekbones are as cutting as ever, and her eyes are the same. She is looking at him the way she always has, like she doesn’t know what to do with him.

It makes him angry, but it’s an immature, petulant sort of angry. She can always cut him down, she doesn’t even have to speak. They are strangers, but they know each other like they are unchanging reflections of one another.

The room they are in is bare, and there are small traces of moss in the cracked duracrete of the walls. They are seated on opposite sides of a steel table, lit by the cool glow of a lamp hanging above their heads. 

“Is this an interrogation room?” Kylo says evenly, helpless to stop the condescension that oozes from him like tar. It definitely looks like an interrogation room. Not the kind that he would use; the lawful kind.

“It’s for meetings,” Leia tells him mildly, eyes searching his face.

He bristles under her scrutiny. “Is that what this is? A meeting?”

“It’s a debriefing, Ben. I need to know the details of what happened on Starkiller Base.”

“And you hurried me away to a remote corner of the base because I’m _not_ a prisoner,” he bites out, his scorn palpable. It’s making his heart beat faster and his hands curl into fists where they are resting on the table. She’s keeping him out of sight for a reason. “No one knows I’m here, do they?”

Leia exhales slowly, the set of her shoulders relaxing intentionally, and her resolute calm makes him want even more to pick her apart. 

“Is that the plan, then? To keep me in hiding and hope I don’t draw any attention to myself? Smart.” 

“Ben,” she admonishes him with just a single word, and an automate spike of shame slots itself into his chest. 

“Don’t call me that.” His jaw is clenched too tightly.

“The New Republic has been all but decimated,” Leia says coldly. Her eyes are burning into his, stony in the face of his incandescent, vindictive anger. “The remaining dignitaries, when they’re not scrambling to piece together some semblance of unity, will be out for blood.”

 

“My blood?” He places a gloved hand over his chest, sneering in mock appall. It’s ridiculous, really, how quickly he has devolved into petty theatrics designed to irk her. 

“Anyone’s. Anyone they can pin this on.” 

“I’m as good as dead, then, is that what you’re saying?” Kylo hates the snap of his voice, but the ire that licks out of him in heated plumes feels _good_. He wants to break something, wants to cut the steel under his hands into strips with plasma, wants to see the embers of it and feel them burn his skin.

Leia is silent for a moment, watching his shoulders curl into a posture that is defensive and rigid, like his is ready to burst. “Your home is gone, Ben,” she whispers, and he can’t tell if it’s an accusation or if it’s offered in sympathy.

He wants to scream at her. He wants to tell her something that will hurt, that it was never his home, or that he’s glad he’ll never be able to go back. But the desire drains out of him quickly, leaving him bereft and lurching with something like grief.

He was a boy once, who smiled and played, and who thought that Hosnian Prime might finally be the place where they stayed still. 

She’s right. And he hates her for it. 

“It wasn’t what I wanted.” The words slip out of him, low and honest. “I tried-” he stops, mouth open, watching the way her face finally creases with emotion because she knows. She knows that it hurts. “I tried to stop it,” he croaks.

“Good. That helps your case.”

“My case,” he repeats hollowly, narrowing his eyes. 

“Your presence here can’t be kept a secret forever, Ben,” Leia says gently, extending a hand to place it between them. He leans back instinctively, away from it, and if it hurts her she doesn’t let it show. “The Republic has to believe that you’ve left the First Order, and that you’re an asset to us.”

He scoffs, and grips the edge of the table hard enough to hurt. His voice is hard when he says, “I will not pander to the Republic like some snivelling refugee.”

Leia’s mouth thins into a line, the first sign of impatience she has allowed to show, and he feels a little twinge of satisfaction at the sight. “As far as they are concerned my son is a radical and a terrorist. If we can’t convince them otherwise, I won’t be able to keep you safe.” 

“Do you think I’ve defected? Is that what _you_ think?” His mouth curls with derision, not quite a grimace and not quite a smile. The expression feels cruel on his own face, but she doesn’t blink.

“Ben.” _You’re smarter than this._

“Stop. Calling me that,” he snarls. His clothes feel too hot and his face feels too bare, and he is ready to do something terribly rash.

 

“Ben,” she repeats firmly.

His fists make contact with the table in an abrupt, deafening bang. Leia does little more than glance down at his hands before she looks back up at his face.

“You know why we called you that.” It isn’t a question.

He sneers, and says with hate, “Luke Skywalker told me often enough.”

Leia nods, “He would have; Ben Kenobi was very important to him. Like you.”

“Ben Kenobi was a dutiful old fool.” Kylo’s contempt is savage. She can always do this, can always bring out the ugliness in him and ruin his control. “I’m nothing like him.”

“He was dedicated to light,” she tells him firmly, as if it contradicts what he said. “And compassion.”

“Empty ideals.”

“And he loved Anakin Skywalker better than anyone else,” she continues gently. The tilt of her head is casual, but her face is grave.

Kylo is silent. He feels a little like he’s been punched in the gut. Leia does not speak to him about her birth father, as a rule; she has told him enough stories of Bail Organa, but Anakin Skywalker, and Darth Vader, are figures he has had to learn about elsewhere. 

“And when he lost him, when Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, Ben Kenobi loved Anakin’s children.”

Kylo’s heart feels like it’s going to come out of chest or collapse in on itself. The roar in his ears is not rage, not any emotion he really knows how to name. He doesn't want to.

“He lived a life of isolation, not only to preserve some hope for a future generation of Jedi, but to preserve the evidence of Anakin’s humanity. His love. ” Leia swallows, her eyes heavy with unshed tears, but her voice remains even and calm. “That’s what you are too. And that’s what I wanted for you. To love and be loved, and to understand what Ben Kenobi must have understood. That light is not empty; light is not only peace. It’s love. And it’s compassion in the face of impossible loss, and we have to fight to protect it every day of our lives.”

It should sound like a speech, like one of her crafted political statements, sweeping and just a little grand, but it doesn’t. It sounds sad, and pleading, and loving. It feels like being small again and hearing his mother tell him stories in bed of heroism and love. 

“That’s why you’re called Ben.”

“Not anymore,” he tells her lowly, because he isn’t. Even here, sitting across from her as if what has happened between them is only a story, he isn’t. He has cleaved himself in two, he is changed. He has done his best to reave the parts of himself that feel; they are still there, but they will never look the same. 

“Whoever it is that you choose to be, I just don’t want it to take you away from me. Not again.” Tears slip from her eyes then, fat streams of moisture that roll down her cheeks, and she sucks in a faltering breath. “I just want you back.” 

Her hands reach out to him and he almost pulls away again, almost yanks himself out of her reach. He watches her aged fingers curl around his hand where it’s resting on the table between them, feels her tighten her grip, and she bows her head forward as if in supplication.

“It’s too late,” he tells her what he told Han. It is too late for him in so many ways. He is welcome nowhere in this galaxy, not even in his own head. 

“You’re here. You came back,” when she looks up at him the fierce conviction in her eyes is startling. “I feel the light in you like it’s burning me. You can’t hide from me.”

“I don’t know what you feel-”

“You do.”

He does. There is something in him that wants, not with greed and destructive desire, but with steady kindness. It wants to be gentle. It wants to indulge his compassionate impulses, the urges he has fought to master for years, fought to drown with cultivated hate and cold truth. Hate to fuel power, truth to unveil the pointlessness of compassion, the utter uselessness of it.

But he is infected. It feels like a curse, passed down with names and bloodlines and silence.

He had almost done it, almost killed his father to prove for once and for all that he is greater than his base nature, capable of enormous and terrible things. He would no longer have been consumed by the conflict in him; he would have had the strength to see beyond it and to do whatever brought him the greatest measure of power.

He would have been unstoppable, and terrifying.

Instead he is here, human, hunched at a table, the curve of his posture mirroring the small woman who is his mother, bathed in her presence and so low. He is in the mud, in the thick of it, so filled with vulnerable emotion that he feels sick with it.

“I don’t know what to do with it,” he whispers, horrified, squeezing his eyes shut and feeling his mother grip him until it hurts. 

“Let yourself come back,” Leia whispers.

“It isn’t that simple.”

 

“It can be. I’ll help you. Your father will help you.”

“As long as I’m feeding the Resistance information and waving flags for the _New Republic_.” His voice sounds raw and ruined, wrecked. He rips his hand out of Leia’s grasp. Their fingers hover near one another, clawed, suspended.

“I don’t care what the truth is,” Leia’s voice rises for the first time, temper igniting the way he knows it must have wanted to this whole time, “I’m just trying to make sure you’re not executed for the First Order’s crimes.”

“And what about for my crimes?” He leans forward, bringing their eyes level so he can grit his teeth and make her see the slightly deranged glint in eyes he sees when he looks in a mirror. “Am I to be pardoned? For treason? For murder? They’re going to want something in return.”

“Let me worry about that. All I need is to know that you’ll remain here, and that you’re no longer operating under Snoke’s command.”

He searches her face. “You allowed Han to bring me here, so you must not think it’s a ploy.”

“Is it?” Leia asks evenly.

“No,” he says, plain. “Regardless of whether or not I intended to defect from the First Order, no doubt there are those who already believe I have.”

“You can’t go back,” she realizes. 

He swallows. “Not easily.”

“And Snoke?” Her strong voice wavers a little on the name, like she is afraid.

Kylo breathes in deep, and closes his eyes, tries to find a little shred of calm amidst the torrent of his emotions. He sits up straight. “He must know.” The defeat in his voice is grim. “He must know how I’ve failed him.”

“He still has you,” she whispers, and the heartbreak on her face is fatal. 

“ _I_ have me,” he says vehemently. He is not a child. He is not owned. He is free, always. 

“Does he know where you are? Exactly?”

He shakes his head curtly. “I can can only communicate to him intentionally. And I haven’t.” He pauses, contemplates the lack of contact, lack of anything resembling the Supreme Leader’s presence. It does not bode well; he has the bone deep feeling that it means something bad for him. “Our connection feels weak.” 

Though she must be filing away that information for later, Leia doesn’t pursue the line of questioning. She seems to collect herself, seems to decide to back off from her pursuit of him. “I need to know what happened on Starkiller.”

Ah, yes. Debriefing. Here is the General. Cuttingly, he says,“I faced Han Solo. I planned to kill him.”

They stare at one another. Leia Organa looks too small for the weight of her presence.

Kylo continues when she says nothing. “I failed. I then left Starkiller Base on the Millenium Falcon in the company of Han Solo, the Wookiee Chewbacca, FN-2187, and the scavenger.”

“You know their names,” Leia admonishes him absently.

He feels his nostrils flare and lips twitch with irritation. “WIth Finn,” he spits the name contemptuously, “the _other_ traitor to the First Order. And with Rey, the scavenger.”

“Yes, Rey,” Leia muses, and her brow furrows curiously. “She’s…”

“Strong with the Force, yes.” 

“As I understand, she was your prisoner.”

“She’s seen the map. I believed I could retrieve it from her mind.”

“And did you?” she asks archly.

He fumes, grits out, “No. She proved… difficult.”

“You say she’s strong, what can she do?”

“What I can. Deep dive into a person’s mind. What else, I’m not sure.”

Leia shakes her head, and smiles with a little wonder. “She came out of nowhere, didn’t she?”

Kylo’s mouth feels a little dry, and he resists the urge to clear his throat. “Yes.” Came out of nowhere, and all but ruined him. “I think that is sufficient,” he says, clipped. “You can hear the rest from Han Solo.”

“You’ve told me nothing.” The exasperation on her face is almost kind, and gods but it cuts him. 

Kylo looks down at his own hands, at the dark sheen of his gloves, their silhouette large and adult. His hands are much bigger than hers, but her grip had been so tight. His throat feels thick, and his stomach is lurching with a combination of exhaustion and prolonged, heightened emotion. He is running on empty.

“Just tell me,” she takes pity on him, looks at him with reprehensible gentleness, “that-” she breaks off, blinks furiously, and seems to fight for words. “Tell me that you’re here, and you’re you. Tell me that, and I will never stop fighting for your life.”

That sets him off. He can’t pinpoint why, but frustration cracks out of him like a whip and he is on his feet. He takes his chair by the back of it and shouts and he throws it across the room in a humiliating display of temper. It’s only his own strength, he doesn’t use the Force, but the impact against the duracrete makes a tremendous, violent clang.

Not a half second later, the room’s only door opens, and Han Solo frowns down at the chair at his feet. “Things are going well, I see.”

Leia bows her head into her hands, and massages her temples with the tips of her fingers, breath leaving her in a long sigh.

Kylo stands with his arms braced on either side of his body, chest heaving, and vibrating with terrible energy. He wants to pace, and he makes it a few steps before he draws himself up short and whirls on Han. He stabs a finger in Leia’s direction. “She thinks I’m going to turn on the First Order.”

“You kind of already did, kid.” Han shuts the door behind him quietly and rests one hand against the frame. 

Kylo snarls. “She’s pretending everything will be fine, like I won’t have to become an _informant_ for this underhanded, misguided operation.”

“She’s still here,” Leia mutters dryly, pinching the bridge of her nose like she is trying to stave off a headache.

“We both want you safe,” Han says firmly, holding up an open hand as if to soothe him. “We’re both going to do whatever it takes. I told you not to worry.”

“What you both can’t seem to understand,” Kylo growls out, gravelly and unhinged, “is that I am still the enemy.”

“You’re our son,” Han’s voice spikes sharply, barking. “Now sit down.” He lifts Kylo’s discarded chair, hauls it back to the table, and rights it with a reverberating clang. “You’re giving your mother a headache.”

“This is ridiculous,” Kylo mutters, slumping down into the chair and unconsciously mirroring his mother’s pose, two reflected pictures of defeat.

Han places his palms on table as he addresses them with a poor attempt at measured patience. “Let’s think about this logically, hm? You can’t return to the First Order and the Supreme Buckethead.” He looks to Kylo for confirmation, who begrudgingly inclines his head. Han nods in return and continues, “And right now the Resistance is the only thing standing between you and your status as a fugitive. So,” he turns up a hand, as if to hold the solution in his palm, “it seems to me that a tentative truce is in your best interest. No expectations. We’ll deal with what comes when it comes.”

The three of them fall into heavy silence. Kylo cannot stand to make eye contact with either of them, so he stares down at his own boots, examining a bit of mud crusted under one heel. “It seems…” he grits out, low and resentful, “It seems you are correct.”

Han’s grin is roguish through his pain, triumphant. “I always am.”

“Don’t push it,” Leia tells him fondly, but she’s looking at her son through the finger hovering over her face, eyes wet and full of hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long! I should be back to more frequent chapters after this. Thank you for your comments you give me life! 
> 
> If you want to talk to me you can also find me on [tumblr](http://artificialsleeping.tumblr.com/).


	6. Sheltered

‘I have to get back to Jakku.’ The thought rises unbidden the moment Rey opens her eyes. She examines it in the seconds after, breathing in deep and feeling the unbearable softness of the bed she is in. She turns the thought over in her mind, and lets it sink in. 

It feels like it must be dawn on Jakku, when she would usually wake and rise from her AT-AT home, ready for the day’s work. She turns on her side slowly, curling up, and reaches for the datapad beside her bed. It illuminates softly when she touches it, and she blinks against the light. 

Rey sits up, reaches out to turn on her lamp as well, and turns the datapad over in her hands, examining it. It’s not new; it’s had previous users before it was loaned to her. She wonders if it’s really there for her to use, if she’s meant to be touching it.

To her surprise, the first thing that appears is a data pack labelled with her name. When she opens it, she finds a holomessage addressed to her, with instructions to attend a debriefing that morning. When she closes it, she finds that there’s plenty of other information stored as well, including a detailed map of the base. She can see that she’s currently in a room labelled ‘Visitor Bunk 12’. Most of the base’s other inhabitants probably occupy a block of rooms that look large enough to be shared rather than private. They’re all closer to the active areas of the base and various hangars. 

There’s a collection of holovids and books preloaded as well, which seems enormous to her, and she scrolls through the titles with interest. There’s material clearly intended for pilots, which she eagerly resolves to return to later.

She even has access to a holonet division. Limited permissions, it seems, with the ability to contact certain members of the base and access general news and information. This kind of technology has never been available to her, just whatever datachips she was able to scavenge. She thinks of the amount of time it had taken to finally piece together a computer from restored parts. It had been ugly and clunky compared to the datapad in her hands, which is worn and well used but slim and bright.

Can she carry it around with her? Is that what people do? She looks at the still folded pair of pants beside her bed, and supposes that they do have fairly large pockets. 

According to her datapad she has a bit of time before she has to show up in B-47 in the communications sector for her debriefing. She wonders if Finn has already woken up, or he’s still unconscious in the room next to her. A sudden anxiety takes hold of her, and she leaps up, padding across the room in her bare feet and thumping experimentally on the wall between them.

A halfhearted groan rises on the other side, and Rey smiles, relaxing and feeling a bit foolish. Still asleep, then. 

“Finn,” she calls loudly, rapping against the wall again. “Check your datapad.” He must have one too, she assumes.

There’s a faint grumble and a sudden thump, followed by a faint hiss of pain. Rey stifles a bubble of laughter, pressing her smile against the inside of her wrist. 

“What am I looking- oh.” Finn voice starts to sound less hazy, more alert. “Debriefing?”

“Me too,” Rey confirms. “Meet you outside soon?” 

“Got it. Hey,” his voice colors with excitement and grows clearer, like he has stepped up to the wall right where she is. “Did you try the shower? They have water!”

Rey hesitates, then says falteringly, “Sonic.”

“You missing out,” he crows, “I haven’t had one since I was stationed on Starkiller.” They are close enough now to speak in more moderate tones, and Rey instinctively presses her hand up against the wall where she thinks he is. “Try it,” he says encouragingly, “I’ll wait for you.”

Rey smiles softly. “Ok. Fifteen minutes?”

“Make it twenty,” he says, like it’s an order, and she can hear him rap his knuckles against the wall before he steps away from it.

Rey feels strangely nervous as she retrieves the rest of the clothes she’s been given, leaving her own tattered garb on the floor, and steps into the refresher. She examines herself for a moment in the mirror, and feels silly when she sees her own pale, childishly frightened face. Her hair is a mussed shroud around her head, tangled and bent from the three-bun style it’s usually bound up in. She looks younger than she remembers, but tanner and more wrung out.

She sets the clothes on the small counter and turns toward the shower, examining the dials. It has a modest variety of settings, some of which she isn’t sure about, so she keeps them where they are and turns on the stream of water. It’s loud against the floor of the shower, and when she puts her hand in it she finds it quickly warms to a comfortable temperature.

She watches it drip from her hand and smiles a little.

Eager now, she strips off the shirt hanging from her frame and steps into the shower, positioning herself under the stream. She turns her face up to it, feeling the pressure of it against her skin, and marveling at the steady strength of it. It’s already more than she has ever felt against her skin, the pressure constant and cheerful. Tilting her chin down, she feels it rake across her scalp like tenuous fingers, and shivers.

After a few minutes of this, she reaches for a bottle of what must be soap, and squeezes some into the palm of her hand. It’s green and gel-like, and slightly sharp smelling, but not unpleasant. When she discovers the way it lathers generously, she takes more, sudsing up her entire body until she, and the inside of the shower, is covered in a layer of thick foam. It tickles her nose. She rubs it through her hair, feeling like she is yanking out more than a few strands as she goes.

She watches it rinse down the drain, rubbing the bubbles from her skin attentively and feeling the way she is a little bit softer afterwards. Smooth and clean, like she is newly made despite her sun weathered skin and smattering of scars. She reaches to feel the curl of her spine, the curve of her ribs. The years of her life have been an exercise in paying little attention to her body, in resisting hunger and fatigue. Her own form feels unfamiliar, as if she is noticing things she never could before. Are her bones like everyone else’s? Is she too thin, too wiry to appear normal? Is that why Finn seems protective of her? Does she look like a child?

There are no answers in her own head; she is only Rey, and that has been good enough up until now. 

The warm water feels good, but after a moment of staring at the temperature dial, she turns it until the water chills, until it is cold enough to force the breath out of her in a quick gust.

For a moment her eyes are round, mouth open in surprise at the feeling, her body spasming and going rigid. And then laughter sputters out of her, a kind of kneejerk hilarity. For about thirty seconds she giggles and shivers in the frigid spray, until she has finally had enough and scrambles to turn it off. 

She flails a hand outside of the shower to wrench a towel off the rack, and tucks it around her body. Goosebumps line her arms, standing her fine hair on end, and she is wracked with giddy shivers. The feel of it is intoxicating.

She rubs herself dry, twists water out of her dripping hair, and stands naked in front of the sink. There is a small shelf of unlabeled products, and she examines them for a moment, picking up a tube of something white and creamy. She uncaps it and sniffs experimentally. The fragrance is overpowering to her sensitive nose, and she quickly shuts it, nearly gagging, and hurries to pull on her borrowed clothes. 

The dark colors look strange on her, as does the rounded neckline of the shirt that’s a bit too big. The ensemble looks ill fitting and incomplete, like there should be something else over it. A jacket or a vest, she thinks, like Leia’s.

 _General Organa_ , she corrects herself silently. 

She’s not sure what to do with her hair while it’s soaking wet, so she combs the tangles out of it with her fingers and lets it hang down over her shoulders, limp and damp. 

Finn is waiting for her outside her room when she comes out. He is dressed much like she is, and the lightsaber is at his belt. He gives her an expectant look, to which she smiles, slow and secretive, and says, “This is the cleanest I’ve ever been.”

Finn grins at her jauntily and jokes, “Not missing that junkyard now, are you?”

That gives Rey pause. She doesn’t miss Jakku, but all the same she is clamoring for the isolation of its dunes, the same feeling of ‘I have to go back’ on loop in her mind. It feels false and frightened, and she can’t give it enough time to sweep her up in uncertainty. She won’t.

“Hey,” Finn is looking at her in concern, her lack of response hanging between them. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine.” Rey shakes her head brusquely, and tries to quirk her lips reassuringly. Judging by his askance look, it’s not entirely convincing. “Really,” she stresses, “I’m just- I’m not used to it.” She gestures around them, because ‘it’ is everything. Everything that has transpired since she left Jakku. She has barely had a moment to slow down enough to feel anything other than a heady cycle of excitement, fear, adrenaline. Right now there is nothing to fix, no one to save, no one to escape, nowhere to urgently go save the debriefing with the Resistance. 

Finn nods, and admits, “Me neither. I keep waiting for someone to tell me to put on a helmet.”

Rey snorts, and they smile at each other softly. 

 

The debriefing, it turns out, is with General Organa and one of her officers, who makes notes in a datapad but does not record the conversation, which Rey finds odd. Finn gives Leia the lightsaber with little ceremony, as if they have already somehow spoken about it, and it sits on the table between them throughout the meeting. Rey cannot stop looking at it. 

She and Finn recount their individual experiences in as much detail as possible. Rey finds it difficult to do so, always choosing fewer words out of force of habit, always cutting out pieces that don’t seem pertinent. She has to be gently prodded and questioned, where Finn seems nearly clinically practiced in recounting events as thoroughly as possible. He includes things she never would have thought to, small actions taken by each of them, his own motivations, his fears. He trusts the Resistance, especially General Organa, that much is clear. He wants to help them.

Rey doesn’t _not_ trust them; they are the stuff of her childhood dreams. She has fantasized vaguely about being a Rebel Pilot for as long as she has felt small and oppressed. She tries, earnestly, to find the words that they need, struggling with the muteness that seems to plague her periodically, the obstruction that has her floundering, searching for something to say.

She feels exhausted by the end of it, ready to curl up and sleep, and breakfast is only just being served. 

They are dismissed to eat following their debriefing, but General Organa gently asks Rey to stay behind for a moment. The officer who had assisted sees himself out unobtrusively, and Finn keeps a respectful distance.

“I know this must be overwhelming for you,” Leia tells her seriously, leveling her with a look that makes Rey feel utterly transparent. 

Immediately, Rey’s nose burns with sudden emotion, because it is. It suddenly is, and when Leia looks at her like that it comes right up to the surface where she can’t ignore it.

“You’re under no obligation to stay with us, Rey,” Leia continues, touching her arm lightly, kindly. “You’ve been through a lot, and if all you want is to go home,” _it isn’t her home, not really, she doesn’t have one,_ “no one will stop you.” 

Rey nods, but finds it difficult to speak. Her throat catches.

“But Rey, I need you to know something.” Leia’s gaze is heavy with the weight of years and hardship, and some important truth. “We know where my brother is. We know where Luke Skywalker is.”

Rey’s eyes widen, snapping onto Leia’s in astonishment. She knows that Finn must have heard as well, from the way his face suddenly angles towards them in her periphery. 

Leia nods. “The rest of the map was recovered not long after you arrived.” Her chest swells with a deep breath, and there is pride there, as well as fear. “We have all of it. When know where he is.”

 _Luke._

“This is a time of crisis. The galaxy needs any semblance of organization it can get, and it’s the perfect time for the First Order to exert control. We’re going to try to keep that from happening.” Leia pauses, chooses her words carefully. “The Jedi were once protectors of peace. Luke wanted that to be true again.”

“Kylo-” Rey freezes as soon as the name leaves her lips, feeling as if she has crossed some invisible boundary, but Leia just nods steadily, encouraging her to continue. Rey swallows and says, “Kylo was the apprentice, wasn’t he? Who destroyed it, who made Luke leave.”

“Yes.”

“Does he want to kill him?” Rey whispers, and she seems to suddenly become aware that he is _here_ , thinks sharply about the fact that they are on the same planet, the same base. 

“Ben is - struggling,” it’s not the right word, and Leia seems to know it. “I haven’t told him yet.”

Rey starts when Leia takes her hands fiercely in her own, but she clutches them back. Contact with Leia feels natural, welcoming. “He wanted the map,” Rey whispers.

“He wanted a lot of things. But he’s running out of choices. I need to make sure he makes the right ones.” Leia says it like her life depends on it. Like her heart does.

“What can I do?” Rey says it without thinking, wants only to help this woman and return the kindness she has showed her. She feels a powerful loyalty cementing itself in her bones. She wants to heal what she can, wants someone’s family to be whole, if her own never will be.

 

“It’s a difficult time right now, and to ask you to stay with the Resistance is to ask you to risk your life. Our base of operations needs to be moved, I am going to be in talks with the Senate - what’s left of it, with whoever is stepping up. We need stability, and we need hope.”

_We need Luke Skywalker._

“It’s a lot to ask of you Rey. But you’re strong. You are strong with the Force, like Luke. Like my son.”

“You think I can help him. Kylo,” Rey realizes, blinking. She is not being asked to become a recruit. What is she being asked to do? To help restore the Jedi Order? To have some sort of part in it?

“I think that he has reached out to you already, in his own way. I think that the two you of have great parts to play in this conflict.” It sounds like a promise and an apology, and it sounds like deadly portent. Like Leia Organa knows something about the shape of what is to come, and of course she does. She is a Skywalker too, after all. 

“And Luke?” Rey asks uncertainly.

Leia turns, letting go of Rey’s hands so that she can reach and take the lightsaber from the table. As she extends it to Rey, the girl is already shaking her head.

“I can’t-” She can’t. Not again. 

“I need you to take care of this for now,” Leia interrupts gently, looking at her meaningfully. “Until it can be returned to Luke. I believe that you are the best person to protect it right now.”

Rey looks down at the hilt, at the unassuming looking piece of metal, at its grooves and smooth sheen. Fear draws her lips into a thin line. When she reaches out and closes her fingers around it, nothing happens. There are no visions, no nightmares of monsters pursuing her in the dark, just cool metal against her skin. She releases the breath she was holding. 

“Rey. You’re strong. You’re the brightest beacon of light in the galaxy right now, and my son needs to follow you back from the dark. And my brother needs to follow you home.”

“I’m just-” _A scavenger. I’m just Rey._

“You’re here for a reason.” Leia closes Rey’s hand around the lightsaber more tightly. “I know it, and you know it. Luke once took this on, when the Jedi were gone and the dark side threatened to overtake the light, because he was the only one who could. He fought to restore balance, and now I have to ask you to fight too, even though it isn’t fair. I have to ask you to help me. You’re-” Leia stops, a wry smiles twisting her mouth with the humor of something long past, and she says fervently, “You’re my only hope, Rey.” 

And Rey says, quietly and with weight, “I’ll help you any way I can.” No matter how much fear she feels, she means it.

 

The days after that meeting are a flurry of experiences that are simultaneously too new, too wonderful, and too nerve wracking. 

She learns the base well enough to get around without a map as soon as she is given freedom to go as she pleases. She isn’t given work, but the rest of the base is in the middle of a concentrated effort to prepare to leave D’Qar, so she helps where she can, and finds that she is particularly welcomed by the mechanics working day and night to make sure every ship is ready to leave the base. Some are badly damaged and a few are barely salvageable, but they’re needed to transport not only people, but all of the Resistance’s equipment and resources, things that are in short supply with the disordered state of the New Republic. When it’s discovered that Rey understands the inner workings of most crafts and can communicate well with the droids, they welcome her help, and Rey welcomes the chance to keep her head down and sweat. It makes her feel like she is earning her keep, at least a little.

She is fed well, perhaps overfed, Rey isn’t sure. But Doctor Kalonia insists that she’s only getting what she needs. The older woman checks up on her on several occasions, running diagnostics and inquiring about her emotional state. 

Rey is outfitted with clothing of her own. When all the Resistance’s styles prove uncomfortable, she tentatively asks for something with arm wraps instead of full sleeves, and receives a muted gray ensemble that is light and perfect. She is given a belt for the lightsaber, which she keeps with her, keeps safe. 

At night, it sits beside her bed, the last thing she sees before she sleeps.

She doesn’t see General Organa, or Kylo Ren, but she works with Han and Chewie in the hangars, not just on the Falcon but on the other ships as well, because he is doing his part too.

He doesn’t tell her much about Kylo, but he seems hopeful from the easy way he makes jokes to brush off her tentative inquiries. 

“He’s gotta walk before he can run. We’re working on getting him to wear something that isn’t black and full of terror, first. Then he’ll be allowed to play with the other kids.”

As far as they can tell, no one else knows about his presence there. Rey isn’t sure what would happen if they did.

Finn sticks to her like glue, except when she is spending long hours covered in grease or Poe has spirited him away for training. Rey isn’t sure what he’s training _for_ , isn’t sure what his place in the Resistance will be, but he seems to be alright with their uncertain status. 

Rey first meets Poe Dameron is the mess hall, when Finn sits them down together over caf to introduce them. 

(Rey doesn’t like caf yet, but she’s told it’s an acquired taste, so she hasn’t stopped drinking it yet. It gets her blood moving, at least.) 

Poe is roguish in the way that she thinks Han Solo must have been in his youth, dark haired and dark eyed and brimming with an energy that’s like sharp sparks. She doesn’t like him, at least not at first, put off by his easy confidence and air of invincibility and the one time he calls her ‘sweetheart’. He doesn’t do it again; Rey’s glare can speak volumes, and she can tell that he is unsure of how to treat her when she doesn’t respond to his familiarity and jibes. She is alien to people like him; she catches him watching her with amazement as she licks her plate clean at one meal, and then Finn’s straight after when he tries to get rid of it. 

But he’s important to Finn, and she understands why, so he’s important to her too. His jokes begin to grow on her when she figures out that he really does mean well, and when she sees the way he looks out for Finn.

After a week, she feels just a little like she belongs. She rises at the same time as everyone else, eats meals at the same time (though only with Finn and Poe), and does her fair share of work. After a week, she begins to venture outside, past the landing strip.

D’Qar’s forests are beautiful. They are mistier and cooler than Takodana’s, and a deeper, darker green. There are rivers veined through them like they’ve been cut into the earth. Some of them are small, fast things, and some of them are wide and deep and sedate. It rains periodically in light drizzles that she revels getting caught in. She learns that she can climb trees fairly well, and spends much of her time outside trying to get as high as possible, to see as much as she can. She starts waking early, so that she can watch the sunrise from her favorite perch, and in the quiet rustle and pale light, she finds new shades to her loneliness. 

It’s like turning to see something new in her own reflection; it was already there, just out of sight. She finds what has been there the whole time, not a desire to go back to Jakku, but a desire to go home. A desire to go back to a home that doesn’t exist for her. 

In that soft morning light, she brushes tears from her cheeks, and reminds herself of what is ahead.

On her twelfth night on D’Qar, she goes out after dark. She is growing adventurous and restless, caught up in waiting for events to unfold. Someone had advised her against it, cautioned her against getting lost, and she reassures herself that she will not go too far, will not stray too much from the landmarks she has grown familiar with. She traces rocks and trees with her hands, delighting in the wet chill to the air and the cool, dim light of D’Qar’s moons. 

She is half way up a tree when a sudden flash of light gives her pause. She stills, blinking away the spots left by the blinding force of it, before a rumble shakes through her, deafening. Her hold fumbles, and she slips down a few feet, scrambling for purchase before clutching a branch. Her heart pounds frantically in her chest as she waits. _What was that?_

There is more light. One, two, three flashes. She looks up, and it is coming from the sky; she thinks she can see it between the trees, forking and licking the clouds fiercely for a split second before vanishing. The terrible clap and eruption that follows is worse than before, and it seems to go on forever. When it fades, she is trembling.

Rain begins to pelt her, not in the soft kind of shower she has grown used to but in heavy, stinging drops that slap her skin with surprising force. She decides it’s time to get down, and tries to calm the erratic pulse of her heart in her chest as she grasps with shaking fingers at branches and knots, carefully making her way to the ground.

She is nearly there when light blinds her again, and her urgency drives her to leap the rest of the way, landing heavily with a stumble against the wet ground. Mud and leaves stick to her but she pays them no mind, racing back toward the base as more tremendous, terrible crashing sounds seem to surround her. She is already soaking, can barely see through the curtain of rain that grows heavier by the moment, and she fervently hopes that she is going the right direction. 

When she sees the faint lights of the main hangar through the trees, Rey cries out in relief. She tries to speed up, and stumbles against a root, foot wrenching painfully. Cursing, she drags herself up; she is almost at the edge of the trees, she can make it. 

She gets herself to where the forest breaks and a stretch of grass lies before the base, nearly sobbing with relief. A sudden fork of light webs across the sky, impossibly close, and illuminates a figure ahead of her.

Rey draws up short, breath catching in her throat; in that flash of light she can see a head of dark hair and a tall form, hunched forward against the wind and clutching something. It’s Kylo, she realizes with terror. He looks like the stuff of nightmares in that moment, lit up and stalking toward her with intent. Her imagination places a crossguarded lightsaber at his side, red and furious. 

And then the moment is over, and in the cacophony of noise that follows in the darkness, Rey sprints forward.

When they reach each other Kylo catches her by the shoulders and pulls something from beneath his coat - his clothes are different, she thinks frantically - and pulls it around her. He yanks a hood over her head and stoops down so that he can look at her. Another flash of light throws their faces in sharp relief, his furrowed in something she can’t identify and hers fixed in terror. 

“ _Rey_ ,” He shouts over the noise. He is still clutching her shoulders solidly, and Rey’s hands flounder to find purchase on something, catching on his sleeves.

“I was- What-” The next crash and boom cuts her off, and she jolts, preparing to run, but his grip tightens on her until it’s painful. 

“Look at me,” he snarls, drawing their faces close. “It’s only thunder. It’s only a storm.”

She knows storms, storms are sand and hot wind, not _this_ -

“It’s ok,” he tells her, and he’s so close that she can see drops of water streaming down his face, the wind whipping them away from the end of his nose. “We’re going inside. It’s ok.” He repeats it like she didn’t understand, and Rey thinks that she should know what this feels like when his arm comes around her to hold the coat over her shoulders and shelter her with the stoop of his body over hers, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t know what this feels like. Or she didn’t, until now, in this surreal swirl of water and wind and light.

Rey fists one hand in the soaked fabric of his shirt, and curls herself against the storm, and together, they make their way toward the base.


	7. Polar

When the door slides shut behind them with a pneumatic hiss, it goes abruptly quiet. The faint whistle of wind and the white noise of rain are the only indication of the torrent outside. A rumble of thunder sounds gentle with the metal between them and the storm.

As soon as the urgency of sound and dark and wind and water leaves them, Rey is moving herself away from his hovering presence, moisture falling off of her and onto the duracrete floor. He watches her as if in slow motion, sees her tense up just before she steps away from him, knows that she is remembering who he is, what he has done. With the the coat still over her shoulders and the hood enveloping her face, she turns to look up at him with something between disbelief and apprehension.

There is nothing for his hands to do, so Kylo spreads them where they hang uselessly at his sides, flexing in a nonsensical gesture. “You’re welcome,” he says thickly, too flat to be in good humor.

This only seems to agitate her further, and she draws up, indignant, looking him up and down like she can’t believe what she’s seeing.

“What are you wearing?” It’s faint, like those aren’t the words that she meant to come out of her mouth, and she bites off whatever might have come after. She clutches at the edge of the jacket, his jacket, enormous on her, fingers pale and wet, and Kylo can see bumps lining her skin where her arm is exposed. The wet tendrils of hair escaping her tri-buns are stuck to her face, which is drawn and white, like exposed bone.

“Clothes,” he says slowly, eyebrows raising. 

“I meant-” Rey cuts herself off, lips quirking down in frustration. “What-” 

‘What were you doing out there?’ he thinks she means to ask.

He doesn’t help her, just stands and watches her struggle for words. Her mouth twitches, opens and closes, and her eyes dart down the hallway and then back to his face.

She must not know where they are; he had taken them to an entrance she probably hasn’t been through, seeing as it leads away from anything important. She is in the corridors that only he and his parents (and Chewbacca) have been travelling in the past dozen days.

Kylo looks down at Rey’s feet; she has her weight on one, has been stepping unevenly on the other. 

“You’re hurt.” His voice is clipped.

“It’s fine,” she says mildly, like it shouldn’t even be addressed. Like it really is nothing.

“It’s fine?” He can feel the bemused blankness of his own face, can feel a bead of water trail down his forehead and drip from his brow.

“I fell out of a... tree. Sort of,” she mumbles, and there’s a second when they both almost start to smile, because it’s ridiculous, and Rey seems to realize it just then. But then they catch themselves, and the small, surprising bloom of good humor wilts in the face of their self awareness.

He examines her profile when she turns her head away.

She looks small, he thinks, slight and thin, but statuesque all the same. He doesn’t know where it comes from, but she looks strong. Enduring, no matter how mussed and ragged her exterior is at the moment. 

She’s no ordinary girl, after all. She has endured years of being alone. Years of aching, bone-deep loneliness. The memory of it still stabs of him, just the thought of it is breathtaking.

“You knew I was out there,” she says, whispers, and looks doubtful, like she doesn’t trust the words.

“You were afraid,” he says faintly, because it’s truth. He had woken in a blur of feelings and images, uncertain of why, but sure of what he needed to do. He had been outside in the storm before he could really think about what he was risking, or how he had not been outside in nearly two weeks. 

(He hasn’t been locked in a room, but he has barely left it this whole time.)

She had run to him. Out of panic, to be sure, but she had run towards him. 

He doesn’t know what to do with that.

“But how-” she cuts off, grits her teeth around the remaining words, and he watches the way she bites her lip, expression tightening in uncertainty.

When he takes half a step toward her he watches the way she sways away from him, bumps into the wall and juts up her face like she is steeling herself. The hood falls from her head. He stops.

“Maybe you were calling out through the Force,” he suggests, considering. “Without knowing.” 

She appears to think about this, keeping her eyes glued to his face. He knows what he looks like, as much as he has been avoiding mirrors. He can feel the dark circles under his eyes, the slightly greasy quality of his now wet hair, and he knows his borrowed clothes are rumpled and ill fitting. He knows that the facial hair he has let grow must make him look different. He has done little else but meditate and stonewall his parents, stubbornly keeping to one room so that he may stew in this stalemate.

(Han Solo and Chewbacca have spent hours each day in his company, playing quiet games of sabacc and intermittently dragging him into halting conversation while he sits cross legged on the floor, palms on his knees and doing his best to create a void in himself in which to put every thought and feeling he could possibly have.

He thinks that maybe he is waiting desperately for a vision to reach him, for some indication of what he should do, or what his future holds. The Force has not offered him anything; he has hardly even dreamed.

His mother has been absent save for a few brief visits, garbed in formal dress, jeweled, made up. Fresh from holo meetings and breathless, scarcely able to devote minutes to him, but always with a hope in her eyes that sets him to pieces inside.)

“Come on,” he says tonelessly, starting down the corridor, his boots a harsh staccato march on the duracrete.

After a moment of hesitation, he hears her follow. He slows just a little when he can make out the unevenness of her step, but she speeds up, pushing through it until they are nearly shoulder to shoulder.

Their footsteps echo starkly in the quiet, their shadows thrown out in front of them.

“And… where are we going?” She sounds too bemused to be suspicious.

“I’ve got towels. And I think bacta patches, for your ankle,” Kylo murmurs, remembering the small medpac he had seen in the cabinet in his room. (In his room that is not a cell, because it’s never locked.)

She’s quiet for a few moments, and he can feel her stewing behind him, but he is determined not to look over his shoulder as he navigates through the the corridors. A left. A right. Straight.

“If this is an act I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish.” She sounds almost sullen.

“Accomplish?” He throws it over his shoulder archly.

“Are you trying to get me to trust you?”

“I don’t need anyone’s trust,” he says plainly. 

“And why’s that?” Irritation makes her sharp, makes it sound like she’d rather be anywhere else, though her steps do not falter, in time with his. 

“I’ve already told you.” He regrets the words before they come out, “I can take whatever I want.”

“You’re an idiot,” she bites out, derisive. He had half expected her to balk at his words, at the reminder of who he is to her. But she doesn’t, blurting out her response like she is too rankled to be afraid or timid.

Kylo feels a smile tugging at his lips before he can help it, hidden from her. “And why’s that?” He tries to keep the words flat, free of inflection, but he fails, mouth twitching.

He can feel the way she bristles at the amusement warming his voice. “Everyone wants _someone’s_ trust.”

“Hm.” 

When he stops suddenly at his door she nearly runs into him, and he makes a studious effort to not look at her as he opens it. He leaves it open, and she stands just outside the frame, looking in while he walks past the small table and chairs, past the bed, to a cabinet, from which he takes towels and the medpac. 

He sets the medpac on top of the cabinet and drapes one towel over his shoulders before tossing the other in Rey’s direction.

She startles, catching it reflexively and frowning at him. She takes a step inside and looks around the room and asks hesitantly, “My room has a fresher, where’s yours?”

“Down the hall.” He rubs the towel over his head, scrubbing at his damp hair with both hands. When he wipes down his face and looks up at her, she’s examining his mix-matched furniture and the oddness of the room. “It was an office, I think,” he explains. “All the bunks are in the same block, so,” he lifts one shoulder in shrug.

She takes his coat from around herself, dripping water on the floor, and hangs it on the corner of a chair. He looks at her clothing, new, gray, soaked through. She tries to dry her hair, and has to unwind it from the buns. It falls in wet kinks over her shoulders, and she towels it into a mess.

His eyes travel down. At her belt is the light saber. 

When she sees where he is looking, she freezes. 

For a long, intense moment, they say nothing, and neither moves. And then Kylo purposefully relaxes his stance and turns away. 

He hears her breathe out, swallow. “This is where you’ve been.”

He hums an affirmative, peeling off his own outerwear, so that he is only in his dry, crew necked undershirt.

“But-” she looks at him askance, watching him toss the piece of clothing over the back of a chair. “You’re free to come and go?”

“It looks that way.”

“You’re not a prisoner.”

“What do you suppose it would take to keep me prisoner?” He tilts his head, speculative.

“Han said you’ve - needed time.” She is halting, guarded. She must know she is pressing places that are tender and reactive.

“Time,” he repeats hollowly, fiddling with the medpac. “They’re waiting for something to happen that won’t.”

“What something?”

“They’re waiting for their son.” When she only looks at him he continues, “They’re waiting for him to wake up and want to absolve himself.” He pulls a chair out from the table, sits down, and then tugs the one adjacent to face him. “Sit down.”

Rey squints at him.

He holds up the bacta patches and raises his eyebrows.

She creeps toward him and lowers herself into the chair across from him, scooting it away a few inches. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Yes,” he says instantly.

Taken aback, she closes her mouth with a click, but then recovers. “I think…” 

She is unconsciously reaching toward him through the force, and it’s subtle enough that he thinks she must not realize it. It must be reflexive, an extension of the searching gaze she has leveled on him. He feels pinned, and allows the brush of her awareness against his, wondering at the way he can feel it. The way she sharpens in one moment and softens in the next.

“I think you’re waiting for the same thing.” There’s something vulnerable there, in relaxation of her focus and the sad certainty of her voice, like she just found the answer and is surprised by how much she understands it.

Kylo doesn’t trust himself to say anything to that. He exhales sharply and places his free hand on his knee, palm up. “Ankle.”

For a slow moment he watches the tension return to her face, and then she lifts her leg and gingerly places her ankle in his grasp.

“You look different,” she tells him quietly.

His mouth tightens into a displeased line. He places her calf across his knee, careful not to jostle her, and peels the backing off of a bacta patch. 

“Less angry.”

“Here?” With a careful hand, he touches the part of her ankle that’s radiating heat, ignoring the way she twitches. When she nods, he wraps the bacta patch around the injury, smoothing it into place.

“Why are you doing… this? If you don’t want to help the Resistance?”

“Are you the Resistance?”

She blinks and says slowly, “No, but-”

“Then I’m helping you. Not the Resistance.”

“Then why are you helping _me_?” She huffs a little, impatient with his avoidance.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Are you capable of answering a question?”

“Yes.” He watches the way she fumes, his hand moving idly across her skin, and he decides he likes the flush that rises to her cheeks. 

“I might as well be part of the Resistance,” she points out, ”I’ve been helping them.”

He resists the urge to look for impressions of her memories, to catch glimpses of her time here, but only barely. “I suppose my mother has been trying convert you.”

Rey rolls her eyes in a spectacular demonstration of exasperation. “Convert me- listen to yourself.”

“I tend to.”

“You sound ridiculous. This is the right cause. Your _mother_ is - amazing.” Rey shakes her head. “I wasn’t just talking about me, right now.” She gestures at the both of them. “If you didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t be.” 

Kylo peels off a second bacta patch, intent on placing it alongside the other, so as to cover all of the swelling.

“Your parents wouldn’t trust you not to hurt anyone if you hadn’t come so quietly.” Peacefully, she means.

Kylo sits back, hands still cradling her ankle. “There’s a difference between agreeing with their politics and not wanting to-” he breaks off, almost choking on the words, “to kill them.”

She nods, a little inclination of her chin, like she is shyly encouraging him.

The moment is too human. He feels the instant he cringes away from the emotions she is digging at; it sours his patience and sets alight a flicker of anger that feels bitter and sharp. Cold.

“You should be careful,” he says softly, dark and low, “Don’t be so quick to accept their lies.”

“And what lies are those?”

“I can only guess.” He lifts his chin, looks down his nose. “Maybe that it’s your duty to help them? That you’re destined to become a _Jedi_?” 

Her eyes flicker, and he thinks he has hit something. “That the Jedi - that _Luke Skywalker_ is a protector of peace and justice throughout the galaxy.”

“That’s none of your business.” The set of her jaw is stubborn, and her breath quickens. When his grip on her tightens she jerks herself away from him. “I can choose for myself.”

“They’re pretty lies, aren’t they? They sound good.” His breath catches with a startling hook of emotion. He can see it. “You’re going to fall for them again and again, like I did. Until you won’t.”

She stares at him with her face screwed up in something tense, her body shifting like she is restless and wants to angle away from him, but she doesn’t pull her eyes from him. “You don’t know what’s going to happen,” she says, strained. 

He can tell that she suddenly hates this, hates the confinement and isolation of the room. It’s too risky, it’s too much too soon, and their tentative spell of peace is broken.

He makes himself smaller without thinking, hunches down a bit and eases the tension from his posture. He can see - he can feel - the immediate response in her form, that small release and rock forward, until they are just a little closer.

“I know more than you do,” he says honestly. 

He knows, because he’s in it the same as she is, but he has the benefit of hindsight. He will feel like this, drawn to the parts of himself that he hates, over and over. Helpless and weak, at the mercy of his own nature, until he rises up against it.

Only he already tried that. And he failed.

Maybe she wouldn’t, he thinks, if she tried. Maybe she is so unattached, so alone, that she could break her ties as easily as snapping twigs. She has the fantasy of love, but she doesn’t have the roots of it, they’re not in her.

He peers at her, and can’t say for certain.

“You could have anything,” he murmurs. “But if you give yourself up to these people you’re going to enslave yourself.”

“I think you have it backwards.”

He leans forward. “Don’t let yourself be used.”

Frustration unfurls on her face and Rey stands abruptly, pacing away from him like she’s going to leave. 

He stands before he thinks, body angled toward her and says, “I know how badly you must want their companionship, but it isn’t worth-”

“You don’t _know_ me,” she bursts out, turning to face him, advancing. “Stop talking like you do!”

They are nearly nose to nose. 

“Don’t I?” he breathes. His eyes dart between hers, taking in the dark flecks inside her irises, and he can see her. She is not hiding - probably does not know how - she is there in the Force, a sense image painted in brilliant color. The breadth of her is unfathomable, he cannot mark the edges of her, cannot make out the full picture of what she is. He can see it now, can see how little he had scratched the surface. 

And yet. He has seen deeply rooted fears and desires, dreams imagined at night in a desert. Desperate hopes that have carried her through the years, tentative yearnings born of the relationships she has developed in recent weeks.

It is all so new to her, so capable of hurting. He can feel the fear kerneled inside her, spiking and bubbling up when confronted with thoughts of loss, thoughts of the past, of being alone again.

She is holding everything in carefully cupped hands, hoping that she can keep it. 

“Don’t I?” He has drifted closer, can feel her breath on his face, his throat. He can see the way her eyes move between his, over his face and back again. It looks like she is trying to decide if his closeness is threatening, if she should pull away. 

He wants to set her at ease, he realizes. He wants her to relax, to stand across from him without the tension that lines her shoulders. To speak with him without wariness coloring her voice. He wants to see the corners of her that are hidden from him; he wants in. 

The desire is like water down a drain, it spirals and collects in the center of him, intense and certain. He feels it, carefully. He keeps some distance from it, but it is there. She is like him, and so different. And he wants to know her.

“No,” she says quietly, her eyes connected with his, “you don’t.”

His lips tighten in displeasure.

“You don’t know me,” she says firmly, blinking, as if she is becoming certain of it in that moment. “And I don’t know you.”

Kylo thinks he should probably break eye contact, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t blink, and hunches forward toward her, stooping a little rather than towering over her. He watches, waits for her to steel herself and stiffen, for her to step away. She doesn’t, but her face is lined with distrust.

It’s something. That concession of her space is like a tiny revelation. It sticks him with something niggling and uncomfortable, something worming into his chest and making it hard to breath. 

“Not yet,” he murmurs, and his face feels gentle. 

It feels like they have missed moments, like they have skipped past something to get here, like there should be more. 

He feels apart from himself, and wonders if he has left himself behind one too many times. For what feels like the millionth time since he arrived here, he thinks to himself idly, ‘Who am I now? What am I making myself into.’

The answer is: nothing in particular. He has adamantly taken very little action, holing himself up and meditating for hours on end, not to contemplate, but to silence the inside of his head, so as not to be pulled in any one direction. The past twelve days have been an exercise in utter stillness, and a vindictive part of him has relished the stagnation. 

But now, with Rey, it’s like the vacuum he has made of himself is suddenly expanding, taking on everything he has been trying not to feel. And the odd push and pull of them, the way they step forward and back in their words and their actions to fill in the spaces of one another, it feels like drinking in something he has been deprived of for an age.

He suddenly can’t bear to not know exactly what she’s feeling.

So, like a tiny step off a ledge, he gives into the temptation to really _look_ , to brush searching intention over her. It’s so easy; it’s familiar, like breathing fog onto a pane and finding his own writing. He sees her stiffen.

Apprehension. Mistrust. Unwilling fascination. Confusion.

He breathes in, dips just a little, and there are memories.

He sees a doll in her hands. He sees the desert through the clouded visor of a helmet. Retracing steps, he has seen these pieces, the ones she wears because they have been so ritually burned into her. 

“What are you doing?” Her voice is warning, and he distantly registers the hostile turn her expression takes.

He spreads his hands, as if in surrender, and looks for a long moment, eyes unfocused, as he follows breadcrumbs to the image of a transport diminishing into a wide sky. Longing, terror.

A sudden flash of his own face - not his face; his mask, he realizes - arrests his attention, and he can hear his lost lightsaber, the violent hum, can see it glint off the metal as he never has before. Rain, scrambling.

“Kylo,” she spits, and shoves an ineffectual hand against his chest, jostling him. 

As he blinks her face back into focus, the memory tumbles out of him, and as it goes there is-

Snow. Cold and dark, but alight with red as he, like a creature in a nightmare-

_These are your first steps-_

_The saber-_

_Luke?_

As he seizes unthinkingly onto the end of that memory, intent on chasing it, Kylo becomes aware of the fact that he has moved, and that his hand is gripping her arm tightly. And then his face erupts in pain, and he reels back, seeing stars.

Stumbling, steadying himself, he blinks furiously, vision whited out for a moment, and then snorts out a disgusting spurt of blood. He sputters through it as it run down his mouth and his chin, and then through his fingers as he brings his hand up against his bleeding nose.

When he opens his eyes she still has her fist up, and she’s breathing hard, ready for a fight. 

“You-” he chokes out the words, grimacing in pain and disbelief, “You _punched_ me.”   
He curses and spits to keep the blood out of his mouth, and when he sees that it’s dripping terribly on the floor he flounders for his towel, and gingerly presses it against his face. Then he tilts his head back and glares at her from the corner of his eye.

She looks like she wants to punch him again, so he puts another step between them, because she hits very, very hard.

He says, nasal through blood, hostile, “Were you raised by kriffing animals?”

“Scavenger,” she reminds him scathingly, hunching her shoulders defensively. Her hands are still balled into little fists.

“I wasn’t hurting you,” he mutters, and swears again when he puts too much pressure on his throbbing nose.

She bares her teeth. “I could feel it, I _know_ what you were doing.”

“Most people can’t,” he points out curtly, jaw clenched. “It’s a hard habit to break.” He’s used to knowing, used to looking for the impressions a person projects, the ones he can skim from the surface without the effort of deep diving. He’s used to being able to hide behind a helm when he does it.

He can feel blood down his throat. He looks up at the ceiling, because he can’t stand the shade of betrayal on her face, and feels brittle, like the shock of pain to his system is sharpening everything else. He feels like he is pouring out of himself like sand. 

It’s her, he thinks. It happened before, this compassion. Watching her terrified face, watching her lay unconscious, watching her pain as he had bullied his way into her head. He had staunchly condemned it, hid it.

But now they’re here. Bloody face and bruised knuckles, and he is sorry again.

He watches remorses flit over her features, as if she can feel it in him and is responding in kind, and she frowns at it. She examines his face and frowns over hurting him. 

She is mulish in contrast, angry, when she says, “I’m not afraid of you.” A warning. As if he wants to fight her. As if he didn’t already know that.

He snorts, and winces when it hurts. Something suspiciously like inappropriate amusement creases the corners of his eyes. He can feel it pulling. “I don’t want you to be.”

“Then stay out of my head.” She’s frustrated, fed up with him and the way they keep verbally circling one another. “What are you trying to do?”

He opens his mouth, breath ready to speak, but then he stops. It’s a good question, and he should probably have an answer for her. He thinks of the terror and fury - hate, even - that he had felt for her after discovering her abilities, after finding her gone. When he still knew what he was after.

But - she’s like him. Powerful, lost, and more than capable of making his mistakes.

His mistakes. What are those now? He searches himself for regret, and finds it in spades. But its roots are complicated and twining, pulling him to pieces rather than in any one direction.

Rey has direction, if nothing else. She has stayed true to a single minded goal for more than fifteen years of her life; she knows focus. But now, she has this new power to contend with, and she has been dragged into middle of a galactic conflict. The dark side will not wait for her to find her footing.

Kylo lowers his chin carefully, the flow of blood having slowed. It’s tacky on his face, and he has no idea what he looks like as he tries to wipe it away with the stained towel in his hands. Probably like he’s just eaten someone. He breathes carefully. “I think you may have broken it,” he says, mild. 

Rey sways a little, indecisive, before her face sets and she strides to pick up the medpac. She points a stern finger at his chair. 

Arching a skeptical eyebrow and keeping his gaze on her, Kylo slowly does as bidden, lowering himself into the chair and feeling suddenly gawky, too long for it.

Rey fumbles with the medpac, sets it on the table, and tears open a packet of cleansing pads. She stands directly in front of him, and Kylo sets his legs on either side of her without thinking.

She is close. If he wanted, he could reach out and take the light saber from her waist. He doesn’t look at it; he thinks it will spook her.

He watches her hands tremor just a little before she steadies them, and he holds very still as she carefully cleans away the blood on the bridge of his nose. Her hands are surgical, precise and fine boned, and her face is set in concentration, like she is purposefully intent on the task at hand rather than his eyes on her.

He watches her choose a bacta patch small enough to fit over his nose, watches her peel the backing, and the gel is cool when she puts it in place, painstakingly gentle. 

Sharp, soft. He thinks he may be willing to get hit again if she will do this afterward.

When she is finished, her hands lower to her sides, and she says, “It’s late.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I have to- We’re nearly finished with the wiring on a transport. We’re going to finish it in the morning.” 

“Is that what you’re doing for the Resistance?” His mouth twists in an almost-smile, wry. “Wiring ships?”

“That’s what I know how to do,” Rey whispers, eyes downcast on his face. “I’m not a Jedi.”

“Have you tried anything at all since…” Since Starkiller. “Have you tried to use it even once?” 

Rey shakes her head minutely.

“I can help you,” he implores, tilting his head to catch her eyes again when they dart away from his, uneasy. “People like you and me, we’re always going to be different from everyone else. You need someone who understands.”

She peers at him, lips parted slightly as if in surprise. 

He is not so unaware that he doesn’t know what kind of temptation he is presenting for her, knows that his offer sounds like an offer of kinship, friendship. And at the same time he knows it must rankle, that it’s coming from someone who should be her enemy.

“The force is a tool. But if you don’t know how to use it, it could be dangerous, especially with your… aptitude.”

“Dangerous?”

“For you. For the people around you.” He knows he should choose his words carefully. “Rage can be very destructive.”

“I know how to control myself.” She braces, holds her shoulders back defiantly.

“And you learn very quickly,” he commends her, “But I told you. There are things you may not be able to teach yourself.”

“There must be datapes. Holobooks. I’m very used to independent learning.” Her voice lifts, lofty. 

He reigns in the frustration that swells in his chest. If he gets angry they’ll lose this - whatever this is. He picks up the cleansing pad, already stained with his blood, and scrubs at the lower half of his face where he can feel blood drying. 

“You can change your mind,” he offers finally, looking back up at her. 

“I think-” Her eyes dart between his. “I think you should join the Resistance. First.” She says it slowly, like the words are betraying her. 

“So I keep hearing,” he nearly sneers. 

“You’re delaying the inevitable.” Rey sucks in a breath, like she is preparing to bowl over an immovable object. “You’re going to help your parents.”

Kylo blinks at her, and then squints. “Is that so.”

“Yes. You’re afraid-” when his eyes flash and he opens his mouth, she barges ahead, “You’re _afraid_ right now, but you can’t hide forever. And if you were still loyal to the First Order, you would have turned on us by now.”

“Maybe I have some other plan, some reason to-”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who would pretend to be weak just to gain an advantage.”

She’s exactly right, and Kylo doesn’t know if her certainty comes from the fact that she’s been inside of his head or if he’s just a fairly obvious person. 

“So much for being mysterious and terrifying,” he murmurs. It’s a joke. Because he’s sure that her opinions are only shared by his parents. 

“You said you didn’t want me to be afraid.”

He is intensely aware of the fact that she is still standing between his legs. The closeness is heady, and he can actually feel his heart rate pick up. He has the childish, touch-starved urge to reach out for her hand or something equally ridiculous. “I don’t.”

“Just everyone else? Now that you don’t need information from me?”

He ignores the jab, and nods steadily.

“Then prove it.”

He sits up straighter in surprise. “Prove it,” he echoes.

Rey looks like she half expects him laugh at her. But she trains her face into something cool and imperious, and tells him, “Stop hiding. Prove that we can trust you.”

He doesn’t say that she shouldn’t trust him. He doesn’t say that he doesn’t trust himself. He can’t describe the feeling of having her standing over him, close enough that he can see the nervous hitch in her breath and the little smudge of his blood on her right hand. So he says nothing. 

His silence is slightly cowed; he can feel the bemused look on his face.

Rey nods, once, like she is just relieved that he isn’t reacting with ridicule. She has no idea how affecting she is, he thinks.

In a voice that is somewhat prim she says, “Thank you for - the towel. And for…”

Kylo nods faintly.

“Yes. Ok.” She swallows. “I’m going to go now. Sorry for hitting you,” she adds, and when all he does is look at her, she winces, lets out a breath, and turns on her heel.

When she is gone, and the door is shut behind her, Kylo sits for a long time with his chin in the palm of his hand, nose a swollen mess. He recalls on a loop the sensation of her small hands on his face, gentle.


End file.
